Trials of Elsa
by spashthebandragon
Summary: Elsa is more than ready to put all the drama of that "eternal winter" fiasco behind her and live a peaceful life, but this is easier said than done when she has to contend with problems such as rebellious subjects, scalding hot chocolate, a new bodyguard who's hopelessly infatuated with her, and a prophecy involving a monster coming to kill everyone Elsa loves. It's never easy...
1. The Worst Chocolate

_Clang_!

Dozens of picks struck the ice in harmony. Pause.

_Clang_!

And again.

_Clang_!

It made a nice rhythm. A hypnotic one, even. The kind of rhythm you could sing a song to.

_Clang_!

It was also extremely boring. Now, the part where you used the tongs to yank your freshly cut cube out of the ice, _that_ was the exciting part. And operating those pulleys was even better- I mean, pulleys are fun! At least more so than striking the ground endlessly to chip away at a frozen lake until you have something resembling a cube shape in the ground.

_Clang_!

But the ice-cutter we're focusing on was not thinking that at all.

_Clang_!

He was a big one, alright. Big shoulders, big muscles, big beard. But he was also standing several feet away from the rest of the ice-harvesters. They were off in their own groups, talking and joking amongst each other- anything to stave off the monotony. But not our guy. He welcomed it. Frankly, he had spent the last several hours perfecting the art of whacking the lake with a pickaxe while thinking about absolutely nothing.

_Clang_!

Especially not thinking about _her_.

_Cla_- _Clang_!

His clang had become dissonant from the rest. Stop thinking, he ordered himself.

_Clang_!

That was better.

_Clang_!

The point is, this man really, really wasn't in the mood to speak to anyone today. Or tomorrow. Or ever again.

"Hey, Adrian, how you doing?" called out the Royal Ice Harvester.

_Clang_!

"Um, hello, I'm talking to you!"

Reluctantly, Adrian the ice-cutter turned his gaze in the direction of the voice. A distinct head of unmanly blond hair was moving towards him.

_Clang_!

"What a day, huh?" came Kristoff's attempt at conversation. "It's sweltering out here. Don't know how much longer this ice is gonna last, huh?" He gave a mischievous grin, as if something about the ice amused him.

Adrian stayed silent.

_Clang_!

"Uh… You okay, buddy?" frowned the orphan. Sure his name was Kristoff, but to Adrian he would always be "the orphan." The little tyke who hanged around all the bigger ice harvesters, completely awed by their work.

Definitely not the kind of person Adrian would assign any level of authority to, least of all the status of "ultimate supreme ice-cutter" or whatever position had been invented for him on account of him dating the princess. Little orphan kid stomping around the ice like he owned it… Adrian had been harvesting ice _long_ before Kristoff was even an idle thought in his absent parents' minds, and you didn't see Adrian getting any kind of recognition.

"ADRIAN! Hello?"

"Don't concern yourself with me, boy, "Adrian finally replied, moving his eyes away from the kid. "I know what I'm doing."

_Clang_!

"Oh, really?" replied Kristoff, smugness creeping into his voice. "Is that why you've walked so close to the thin part of the ice? Y'know, the part that's about to break any minute now and send you to the bottom of the lake?"

Adrian's icepick froze mid-swing. "That's odd," the old man frowned. He turned to inspect the surface of the ice by his feet, which was indeed beginning to crack and thaw. "It's too early for the ice to melt. Much too early."

"Yeah, well, the weather around here hasn't exactly been normal lately, has it?" shrugged Kristoff.

Adrian scowled and marched towards solid land. "Looks like we're done here."

Several other ice-cutters seemed to agree and were beginning to follow suit before Kristoff called out, "Hey, slow down, everyone! Let's not give up on this year's ice crop just yet! I've got one more trick up my sleeve…" There was that mischievous grin again. "Oh, look, here they come now."

"_No_," Adrian muttered, his scowl deepening.

It was a pair of pack animals galloping towards the frozen lake from the general direction of the castle- One well groomed palace horse and one shaggy, stinky reindeer, but what really mattered was the animals' riders; the infamous royal sisters of Arendelle, the queen looking all prim and proper on the back of her horse and the princess hanging on to the filthy reindeer with a mound of snow in a vaguely humanoid shape perched on her lap.

The girls dismounted and the princess embraced her boyfriend and all that, but Adrian made a point to himself of ignoring the spectacle. He'd moved too far away from the gathering crowd of harvesters to hear what was being said, but Adrian had a feeling he could guess what was about to happen.

The queen seemed to talk briefly with her sister before giving her a small nod.

Even from a distance, Adrian could easily distinguish between the two. The princess had much darker, redder hair, and her clothing was thicker to accommodate the cold atmosphere of the lake. The queen, in contrast, was draped in an absurdly thin dress of some glittering, sky-blue material that showed off her pale shoulders and a leg. Any other person would've been crazy to go out dressed like that, even if it _was_ getting warmer, but if the queen shivered or hugged herself or did any of the other things normal people do when they expose their bare skin to the freezing cold, Adrian failed to notice.

The elder sister walked towards the center of the lake, past the crowd of ice-cutters, past even the regions Adrian had judged too thin to walk on even when (going by Kristoff's smart remark) he had generously overestimated the ice's thickness.

Despite his distaste for her, Adrian had to admit Arendelle's newly crowned queen had every bit of authoritative grace the Royal Ice Harvester lacked. With a single, dramatic stomp of her heel, the girl sent a shockwave of frost in all directions, leaving the lake as solid as if it were the dead of winter (or the way it had been a couple of days ago, technically).

"Hey, look at that!" Kristoff called out. "I'd say ice-harvesting season's just been extended!"

The ice-cutters met the queen with a mixture of applause, cheers, and even catcalls (the culprits safe in the anonymity of the crowd). She locked eyes with her sister, a nervous grin spreading itself cautiously over her face.

_That_. It wasn't the actual sorcery itself. It was that- that- that pride in what she'd done, in what she could do. _That_ was what provoked him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The queen spun to face her accuser- Adrian, of course, charging straight towards her. She looked completely disarmed by his reaction, as if no one could ever have possibly taken issue with her.

When the queen failed to speak up in her own defense, her sister placed herself between the two, answering, "Gee, I dunno, maybe she's _helping you guys out_ so you don't have to find new work?" But the princess's retort was cut off by a pale hand on her shoulder.

"I can handle this, Anna," the queen said softly. Although she was visibly restraining herself, the princess managed to keep quiet. "What seems to be the problem?" the queen asked.

"You can't drop in here unannounced and tamper with the lake!" spat Adrian, pointing his pick at the woman accusingly. "What right do you have? Who's holding you accountable if you make things worse?"

The queen started to say, "I can control my powers now-"

"Can you?" interrupted Adrian. "How do you know your ice isn't poison to the lake? And when it melts, how will you stop it from flooding with all the added water? Or are you going to leave it frozen forever now so we always have plenty to harvest? Why not go ahead and hand your own ice directly to citizens, cut out the middle man? _Completely_ throw out the way we've been doing it the last forty years instead of _mostly_-?"

"_That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard_!" The princess's restraint had been in vain. "Elsa's ice is NOT poisonous!"

"_Is that a fact_?!" snarled Adrian.

There was a tense silence.

"Y'know what you need? A warm HUG!"

"AGH!"

Adrian didn't know what he'd been expecting by coming over here to complain, but it certainly hadn't been for an animate snowman to suddenly speak and wrap its stick-arms around him. The man did what any of us would do when confronted with a mound of sentient snow trying to hump our leg like a dog; He screamed and punted it as hard as he could. The little snow person went sailing through the air, but fortunately both sisters and Kristoff were composed enough to catch all three segments before any could collide with the cold, hard ground.

For perhaps a full minute, the snowman merely sat paralyzed in shock. Then it started bawling like a toddler.

"We should go," the queen told her sister, her voice barely audible over the snowman's childlike sobs. The creature was quickly reassembled into its proper shape so that the queen could cradle it in her arms like an oversized baby. Both girls mounted their steeds and turned to leave, but not before the younger one looked back to give Adrian a death glare.

"Ummm, Adrian?" Kristoff cautiously spoke up, approaching the man from behind. "Everything alright, buddy? You've seemed a little, err, tense lately."

Adrian's reply was to spit in the queen's direction and then hurl his icepick to the ground.

_Clang_!

"As long as _she's_ here, _I_ won't be."

"Adrian, hold up! What are you doing?" protested Kristoff. "You said so yourself, you've been at this longer than me! You can't quit! Ice is your life!"

But Adrian ignored the boy. He stormed off towards the city, disappearing into a nearby thicket of trees.

"Ooooookay," said Kristoff. He looked back at the royal sisters, whose mounts were disappearing over the horizon. "Maybe I should pretend nothing bad happened and get back to work? I'm sure everything's fine."

"But Kritstooooooof, Elsa is very emotionally fraaaaaaaaagile!" protested the voice of Sven the reindeer, which may or may not have actually been Kristoff's terrible attempt at ventriloquism.

"What's that, Sven?" replied Kristoff, rubbing his ear. "I can't hear you. You're too far away." There was a pause, where had the conversation been face-to-face, the reindeer would presumably have given him a grumpy look of disapproval. "Okay, okay, I'm going…"

* * *

"What a jerk!" Anna was positively fuming, hardly giving any thought to which way she happened to steer Sven through the forest. "Can't we have him arrested for disrespecting the monarchy or something?"

"No, no, just… just leave him alone," answered Elsa from the back of her horse, her head drooping. "I don't think he was entirely wrong…"

"Hey!" It was at this remark that the reindeer halted so Anna could spin around in her saddle to meet her sister's eyes. "Don't go around thinking like that! You did nothing but help the ice harvesters and that guy was an old-fashioned fart who wouldn't recognize progress if it hit him in the face!"

Elsa had no reply for this, which Anna took as a sign she was right (as usual).

"Besides," the girl added, "I didn't go through that big huge adventure we just had- including dating a complete psycho- to see you go right back to being all mopey every time someone's mean to you!"

"I hope you were talking about Hans," came the voice of Kristoff, emerging from the brush onto the forest trail. Sven bounded over to his owner and began licking him in a way that had more in common with a big dog than a caribou.

"Of course I was, _dear_," Anna replied innocently, "who _else_ could ever fit that description?"

"Is anything the matter, Kristoff?" Elsa asked bluntly.

"Just making sure Adrian didn't shake you girls up _too_ badly," said the boy. "I am really, _really_ sorry about him! I swear none of the other guys are like that!"

"Any idea _why_ he had such a low opinion of me?" Elsa prodded, folding her arms.

"Beats me," shrugged Kristoff. "He actually used to be one of the most level-headed guys on the team, but ever since Arendelle's impromptu winter he's pretty much been acting like an- Well, you saw…"

"He must be prejudiced against magic," speculated Elsa.

"Probably not hugged enough as a child," added Anna.

"And I bet his mom cut his sandwiches into rectangles instead of triangles!" spoke up Olaf. "That can really mess up a guy…"

"Oh, Olaf, I almost forgot about you!" Elsa gently deposited the snowman off her horse and onto the dirt path. "Are you alright now, little guy? Can you find your way home by yourself?"

"You bet!" Olaf gave a confident salute and then marched down the trail, his personal flurry cloud following in place above his head and sprinkling a light dusting of snow over his footprints.

"Why, where are you two going?" Kristoff asked the girls.

"This Adrian person was at least right about one thing," explained Elsa. "I shouldn't have used my powers unannounced like that. I couldn't have known how people would react, and I ended up upsetting at least one person. I'm not repeating that mistake."

She reached into a pouch on her horse's saddle and retrieved what appeared to be a pair of plain brown cloaks- some of the numerous ones distributed to commoners by the palace during the eternal winter and then carelessly discarded afterwards.

"Ooh! Are we dressing as commoners?" Anna immediately perked up at the prospect of adventure.

The queen nodded. "I want to see how many other citizens share Adrian's disposition."

Elsa had hardly even finished speaking before her sister concealed herself under a cloak and directed Sven towards the city. The princess had, Elsa noted, an unfortunate blend of naiveté and rashness, but honestly Elsa was hoping her recent life-or-death experiences would get her to simmer down.

Well, she could always _hope_…

Soon enough, a pair of shadowy faces concealed by brown hoods arrived in one of the kingdom's numerous taverns. Of course, they still stood out from the crowd on account of wearing such thick cloaks when it was sweltering outside, but most people seemed to assume they were just homeless and promptly ignored them.

"Try to keep a low profile," Elsa instructed her sister in a whisper. "It's only been a few days- the winter is bound to be a popular topic of conversation. All we have to do is introduce the idea subtly."

"Yeah, sure, got it." Anna's eyes were practically glazed over with thrill. She immediately marched to the front of the crowded bar and slammed some coins on the counter. "I'd like to buy some drinks for my friend and me," said Anna loudly, not even bothering to disguise her voice. "And on a completely unrelated topic, what's your opinion of the queen?"

At the back of the bar, Elsa brought her palm to her face, but then she flinched and pulled it away because it made her forehead cold.

"Vhat a funny question!" Anna recognized the bartender instantly thanks to that unmistakable accent of his, and her suspicions were confirmed when he turned around, revealing himself to be a huge, blond, broad-shouldered man with facial hair that wrapped itself directly around the edges of his clean-shaven chin.

"I know you!" gasped Anna. "You're that sauna guy!"

"Oh no no no no," the huge man chuckled. "That vould be my brother, Oaken. Totally unique individual."

"Ah. Of course." Anna let out a sigh of relief. She'd nearly blown their cover in the most embarrassing, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot manner possible. "Now what were you going to say about my sister- THE QUEEN. I meant 'the queen.'"

"Vell, she seems like nice lady," reasoned Oaken's brother. As he spoke, he set to work preparing the girls' drinks- a murky brown liquid of dubious origin. "And she _does_ have fancy ice powers. Buuuut on other hand, she _did_ nearly bring whole country to ruin vith uncontrollable vinter storm, so overall, ratio of good to bad not in her favor." He gave an apologetic shrug.

"I see." Elsa took a seat on a barstool next to Anna's and pulled her hood tighter over her face. "And it doesn't bother you that the queen uses sorcery?"

"Eh, my sister have magic, too," said the bartender. "Turned me into salamander for three days once. True story." He handed the girls their drinks and then moved on to other customers.

"…Right." The disguised queen leaned in to whisper to her sister, "Maybe we should talk to someone else. Something about this person doesn't strike me as 'typical Arendelle citizen.'"

"Yeah, did you get a load of that accent?" scoffed Anna. "He must be from, like, the other side of the earth!"

Unfortunately, the more "typical" citizens failed to paint a much better picture of their new queen. Some complained of the sudden loss of their crops, gardens, and livestock due to the rapid temperature drop, and even the people mostly unaffected by it still managed to find _something_ to dislike about the "Snow Queen," as they called her. One particularly prudish customer even made a remark about how Queen Elsa was allowing her own sister to run around the kingdom unchecked, become a party girl, and date a wild man.

"Oh YEAH? Well MAYBE the princess doesn't CARE what YOU think of her!"

(Elsa had had to drag Anna away from that one.)

In the end, the girls were left seated back at the bar, staring into their drinks and fuming internally.

"That ice-cutter from before was right about something else, too," spoke up Elsa. "I don't have a clear grasp on exactly what my powers are capable of. I spent so long hiding from them that I never really experimented at all until I made my ice palace."

"He was still an idiot, though," scoffed Anna. "I mean, your ice is NOT poisonous! That's just dumb!" There was a beat. "Um, it's not, right?"

"No, of course not." Elsa allowed herself a small chuckle. "You ate it all the time when we were little, remember?"

"No, I don't, actually," grumbled Anna, her brow creasing. "I'd still swear we did all that playing _outside_ during the _wintertime_." Even after being told the real events, Anna hadn't for the life of herself been able to picture anything besides the fake memories the trolls had planted in her, and this had become a source of constant frustration for the girl.

Elsa wasn't particularly happy about it, either. She'd been hoping Anna's memories had returned alongside the white streak finally vanishing from her hair, but apparently not. Oh well, she supposed it was preferable to risking Anna's mind re-freezing.

The old familiar pang of guilt clawed its way up Elsa's chest, but recent events had severely lessened its presence. Everything from the coronation up to her finally controlling her magic had happened so insanely quickly that Elsa sometimes forgot her life was actually perfectly fine right now.

"I shouldn't be so surprised citizens are unhappy with me," said Elsa, a note of bitterness in her voice. "It was stupid of me to think opening the gates and turning the courtyard into an ice-skating rink would be enough to get people to like me…"

"Hey! What'd I say about not thinking like that?" The younger sibling put a comforting hand over hers. Elsa had to consciously resist the impulse to jerk away.

_Her fingers are _not_ going to freeze and fall off_, she told herself. Aloud, she said, "Things are _never_ going back to the way they were. I promise."

"I know."

Elsa smiled and took a sip of her drink for the first time.

And then she immediately spat it back out, shrieking.

Every eye in the tavern fell on the Snow Queen. Screaming and jumping out of her seat had been a good way to draw attention to herself, but what really made people stare was more likely the fact that her overturned drink was now frozen to the counter by an enormous chunk of ice.

Elsa let out a noise halfway between a moan of pain and a sob, then fled the building.

"Elsa? Elsa, wait!" Anna was quick to follow.

For about a minute, the residents of the tavern stood in stunned silence.

"Heeeeey, that girl has ice powers!" realized the bartender. "Funny, our queen has exact same thing…"

Anna found her sister just outside the tavern, standing where they'd tied their mounts, face buried in her horse's fur.

"Elsa, what's going on?" the princess asked, alarm bleeding through her voice. "You've been doing so well controlling your ice!"

The queen slowly removed her head from the animal's side to look at her sister. Elsa's eyes were red. "It… hurt… me," she spluttered, clearly at a loss for words.

"What did?" asked a confused Anna.

"The drink!" Elsa choked out. "I don't know how, but it hurt me! It hurt my tongue, and then, I, I, I don't know, I just made ice!"

Anna blinked slowly, puzzled. You could practically see the exact moment she connected the dots because the princess suddenly burst out laughing.

"I don't see what's so funny," Elsa pouted.

"Oh, Elsa, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" Anna immediately apologized, stifling her giggles. "That was hot chocolate. You just didn't let it cool down long enough. Haven't… Haven't you ever been burned before?"

"No," Elsa answered testily, "I've only recently gotten into the habit of _not_ freezing everything I touch."

"But couldn't you still tell if it was hot when you touched the cup?" asked Anna.

"What do you mean?" Elsa frowned.

"Didn't the handle feel warm?"

Elsa's face remained clueless.

"Wait a minute." Anna's eyes widened. "You have felt _warm_ at _some_ point in your life, haven't you?"

"I've felt… not cold?" offered Elsa.

Suddenly, Anna felt bad about laughing. It was a bit, she supposed, like laughing at a deaf person for freaking out at loud noises after regaining some hearing.

"Sorry," she gulped. "I didn't mean to be, um, insensitive or anything…"

Elsa merely sighed and mounted her horse. "Let's get home," she said, flicking her tongue around the walls of her mouth distastefully. "That was easily the _worst_ chocolate I've ever had."


	2. A Nice, Hot Bath

"Anna is dead."

The frozen harbor outside the castle. Raging winds spitting a blinding flurry over everything in sight. The sole shape visible through the hailstorm was the dark form of Hans looming over a cowering Elsa, sword held aloft.

"No… no no no no no! She can't be! She-" But the corpse was right there; the familiar shape of Elsa's baby sister, totally stiff, a look of terror frozen on her face.

Elsa cried. She wrapped her arms around Anna's lifeless form. But it was too late.

"Elsa." The girl glanced upwards to find that the person standing before her had changed- Now the man wielding the sword was the king. "What have you done?"

"No, Father, please, I didn't want this! I didn't-"

"I trusted you," the king spoke, his voice tranquil yet furious amid the snowstorm. "And you spat in the face of everything I ever taught you."

"No, Father- What are you doing? Stop it-"

The blade fell. And Elsa's eyes shot open.

Just a nightmare. It was always obvious in hindsight, and yet these dreams had a way of deceiving her in the moment. Elsa shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, "I accidentally froze someone to death" dreams had been a regular fixture of her sleeping exploits for the last, oh, twelve years or so. But she'd slept so soundly these past few days that Elsa had let herself believe this kind of thing was behind her.

That rude ice-cutter from yesterday was to blame, no doubt. Also the fact that Elsa's tongue felt all weird and fuzzy from the hot chocolate scalding.

Elsa waited for her heartbeat to slow down and then sat up halfway out of her covers. Daylight was pouring in through the window. _The sky's awake_, Anna would have said. Elsa wasn't too accustomed to having a giant window in her bedroom, but she had wisely decided to abandon the old bedroom on account of the bad memories it held, and this one was the nicest replacement available.

It was going to take a very concentrated effort for Elsa to drag herself out of bed. The days following the whole "eternal winter" fiasco had been something of a makeshift holiday for the residents of Arendelle, what with the gates finally being reopened and the news coming in that everybody was not, in fact, going to die in a horrible blizzard. But Elsa had promised herself _today_ was the day everything would return to normal. The citizens would be back to business as usual, and the queen herself would be assuming her queenly duties, which she was actually _supposed_ to have done in the _first place_ before everything Elsa thought she knew devolved into insanity.

And she couldn't do _that_ until she got out of bed. Elsa forced herself to remove the covers and plant her feet on the floor. And then she immediately slipped and planted her bottom on the floor, too. This was likely because everything within a two-foot radius of the bed was now covered in a thin layer of ice.

Oh yeah, Elsa thought. Almost forgot. She was one of those people who tossed and turned and generated ice whenever she had bad dreams. This was far from the first time this had happened to her, but it _was_ the first time Elsa could actually make the ice go away.

She felt a lightness in her chest like she was six years old again and it was Christmas morning. It had been several days since Elsa had finally learned to control her powers and that elation hadn't gone away yet. She was hoping it never would.

Close eyes. Think about love for sister (Yep, turns out the answer was love all along). Open eyes. Every last drop of ice was gone as suddenly as it had come. The bed sheets weren't even damp. A grin spread across Elsa's face.

Next up was to run to the adjacent washroom. Brushing your teeth can be fun when the toothbrush doesn't end up covered in frozen spit and the pipes don't freeze and clog up even when you touch the sink handle with your bare hands.

The next several minutes were spent examining herself in the mirror. The change from Elsa's coronation gown to the ice-dress had been rather sudden and drastic, but Elsa couldn't deny she was pleased with the result (though the dress was currently morphed into ice-pyjamas for the sake of comfort. And yes, doing that was totally within the jurisdiction of her powers). Now that Elsa no longer had to hide, it was a huge relief to dress in a way that made it clear to everyone that she was the Snow Queen. The sky blue dress of fabric-like frost coupled with her pale skin and silvery hair meant there was really no mistaking it.

The Snow Queen. That's what people were calling her now. Elsa kind of liked the sound of it.

This mental flood of optimism was interrupted by a knock at the bedroom door.

"Your Highness, I thought I heard you up," spoke the level voice of an elderly man with a hint of an English accent. "Given recent, erm, lifestyle changes, I came to inquire on the status of the special arrangements we had in place for your morning routine."

Elsa swung the door open, revealing a wrinkled, gray-haired man in a crisp, clean suit. He stood perfectly straight despite his advanced age.

"No more special arrangements, Anders," grinned the queen. "Today I'm taking a bath like a normal person."

Being raised a princess meant Elsa had from a young age developed the habit of bathing frequently (Princesses DO NOT have body odor), but this had created a funny predicament when coupled with Elsa's unfortunate tendency to freeze whatever entered her proximity. Anders remembered the day the former queen had stormed out of the bathing chamber, covered in icicles, and declared that from that day forth, her child would be handed a bucket of soap and a scrub brush.

But to be honest, in the recent excitement, Elsa had neglected the habit until now. I mean, when you're convinced you're going to spend the rest of your life in an ice palace atop an uninhabited mountain, your priorities tend to change.

The old Chief of Staff led his queen to the bathing chambers, where he'd already filled the tub with water. With a flourish of her hands, Elsa vanished her ice-dress into thin air, revealing the old coronation gown still underneath.

"_The dress_!" Anders cried out in horror. "You _tore_ it!"

He was right- the coronation gown was now shoulderless with scraps missing around the limbs, too. Elsa hadn't really thought about it at the time (She'd been too busy singing), but she _had_ created her ice-dress directly on top of the old one, and the ice-dress showed off _quite_ a bit more. That extra cloth had to have gone _somewhere_.

"Um, sorry?" Elsa gave an apologetic shrug.

Anders looked like he might cry. The coronation gown had been _insanely_ expensive. "It's… salvageable," he said gravely. Then he composed himself enough to exit the bathing chamber to give the queen her privacy.

Really, a costly dress was a small price to pay for the day Elsa could finally take a proper bath. Anders had been one of the original staff members from long before the late king and queen reduced their number to preserve Elsa's secret. He was therefore of a select few people privy to the real situation from the beginning (most other workers had just thought Elsa had some sort of terminal illness), so as you can imagine finally seeing the day the new queen could go about her daily life without having to worry about spontaneous ice-generation was a pretty big deal for him. Had he been the more sentimental type, Anders would've gotten downright teary-eyed.

But then the moment was ruined by a shriek coming from the bathtub.

An alarmed butler raced into the chamber to find Queen Elsa wrapped in a hastily-forged ice towel to preserve her modesty and standing at the foot of the gigantic royal bathtub. She was giving the bathwater a look not unlike a cat with its hair on end.

"My lady, are you hurt?" he gasped.

"The- The water… the water is too hot," the queen said lamely. Frankly, she looked just as confused at her own reaction as he did.

The butler resisted the urge to roll his eyes and moved to dip a finger in the bathwater. But at this he failed, because as it would turn out the water wasn't hot at all. It was solid ice.

"With all due respect, my lady, I thought you said accidental freezing would no longer be an issue?" said Anders wearily.

"It wasn't an accident!" Elsa replied defensively. "The water temperature just… took me by surprise, that's all. Here, I can fix it." With another flourish of her hands, she sent a bolt of magic into the tub, reverting the water to its liquid state.

"I take it I should refrain from making it that warm in the future?"

"Why was it so hot in the first place?" grumbled the queen, folding her arms.

"A _couple degrees_ above room temperature." Anders' voice was perhaps a bit sharper than it ought to have been. "Generally, my queen, people find bathing in warm water more pleasant than cold."

"Why?" There was a look of genuine confusion on Elsa's face.

"I truly couldn't tell you, Your Highness," answered the butler, turning to leave. "But you are perfectly welcome to bathe at whatever temperature you see fit. You are, after all, the queen."

Elsa spent the rest of her bath deciding that she hated warmth and vowing to never touch anything hot ever again. She was still stewing about this when she exited the tub and returned to the hallway.

Anders couldn't help but notice the queen had chosen to continue using her ice-towel rather than the regular cloth one he had laid out for her, but this didn't really bother him so much as the fact that the ice-towel appeared to have successfully gotten Elsa _dry_.

If that made even a little bit of sense, it was a strange foreign kind of sense Anders wanted nothing to do with.

"Your clothes, my lady." Like a good butler should, Anders held up the new, elegant dress the maids had picked out for her.

"Oh, that's okay," smiled Elsa. "I'll just wear my ice-dress."

"Your. Ice. Dress." Anders's forehead twitched the slightest amount. "Of course."

Ignoring the judgmental look her servant was giving her, Elsa conjured her ice-towel back into the shape of her sky blue gown.

"And are you planning on wearing…" Anders paused to choose his words carefully. "…_nothing_ but the ice-dress?"

Elsa looked quite pleased with herself. "I'm not hiding who I am anymore. I want everyone to know I'm the Snow Queen."

"Yes," murmured Anders, "I'm sure not a single boy in Arendelle will have any trouble noticing…"

"Sorry, I must have some water in my ear." The queen smirked and feigned tapping the side of her head. "Could you repeat that louder, please?"

"Perish the thought, my queen," Anders sighed. "Now might I suggest you go join your sister at the breakfast table? Or do you only eat 'ice-food' now?"

The queen let the remark slide. When you'd worked at the palace as long as Anders, you were allowed to get away with more.

What Elsa chose not to mention on her way to the dining hall was that Anders hadn't been totally off target with that "ice-food" comment. The queen had run away that fateful night with nothing in her stomach but a few morsels of chocolate, and in all the time it had taken Elsa to scale a mountain, construct an ice palace, and live in self-imposed exile for a few days, she'd never once grown hungry or thirsty.

In fact, maybe it could be written off as a result of living in luxury all her life, but Elsa couldn't recall _ever_ feeling _really_ hungry or thirsty. She was beginning to suspect there was more to her magic than merely making ice.

Not that Elsa would object to food, of course. She hoped there was chocolate at the dining hall. Just the thought of chocolate gave her a sugar high.

The castle's dining hall could only be described as gigantic. And empty. If she really thought back, Elsa could remember a time when, every mealtime, the huge room would be packed with hungry staff members, but even now that the gates were open, the employment of new staff had been a slow trickle. Although Elsa had every intention of changing that, for now the dining hall only seated about a handful of off-duty workers, plus Anna over at the royals-only end of the table.

Elsa tried not to make a big show of seating herself, but all eyes naturally fell on her anyways. She hadn't been inside this room since she was a little girl. Ever since the night Anna's mind froze, meals had been brought directly to Elsa's bedroom. There was a surprisingly tense silence as the queen pulled up a chair next to her sister. Elsa had a feeling she was being scrutinized for any accidental ice-creation.

None came. You could practically hear all that tension deflate like a balloon.

Despite the monumental occasion for the staff, who had spent long years guarding Elsa's secret, not a word was spoken. In fact, the only sound acknowledging the event was the gentle sobs of joy coming from Gerda the maid.

Elsa turned to share a big, dumb smile with her sister. It was a picturesque moment; the day Elsa could finally control her powers, and now _nothing_ could take that away from her.

The queen absently raised a bite of food to her mouth. A bite of steaming hot egg, specifically.

* * *

"_Elsa_, you have to come out from under the covers _eventually_!" Anna pleaded from the foot of the queen's bed.

"I _hate_ warmth!" Elsa snapped petulantly. "I hate it hate it _hate it_!"

"Elsa, you're acting like a little kid!" scoffed the princess, hands on her hips. "Heck, you're acting more like a kid than you did when you were _actually a kid_! It's kind of unlike you."

Elsa's reply was muffled by her bed sheets to the point of incoherence, but it definitely sounded grumpy.

"C'mon, you promised yourself today was the day you'd start performing as queen!" Anna reminded her.

"You don't understand." Elsa shifted herself under the covers so that she lay on her belly facing Anna. With her striking blue eyes draped in the blankets' shadows, she resembled some sort of vicious cave creature. "I have to come across as a capable leader, and I just made a fool out of myself in front of everybody. You heard the people in the tavern. The citizens of Arendelle aren't going to reserve judgment on me. They'll jump at the first sign I can't control my powers!"

To be fair, freezing her plate to the ceiling while screaming hysterically wasn't exactly the greatest display of control ever, but Anna refrained from saying this aloud. "Then get up and go prove them wrong!" she argued.

"That's… easier said than done," said Elsa.

It was at this moment that the door swung open and a tiny lump of snow entered the bedroom, making a bizarre hissing sound. Olaf was actually trying to whistle and discovering that snowmen absolutely cannot do that.

"Hey, guys!" he greeted brightly, the drama in the room flying right over his head. "Ooh, ooh, are we playing hide-and-seek? I found Elsa- She's under the covers!"

"Elsa here is upset because her breakfast was too hot and she had a complete meltdown about it and embarrassed herself," Anna said impatiently.

Olaf's eyes widened- or rather, the indentions around his coal-pupils widened. "But hot things are _great_!" he protested. "They make me feel all warm and toasty and melty and _great_!"

"Olaf, the warmth makes you melt," Elsa said crossly, climbing out of her blankets to face him. "We've been over this. I can give you your personal flurry to keep from melting, but then you won't actually get to feel any heat."

"Okay fine, so it can kill me, but warmth is still the best!" reasoned Olaf. "Besides, _you're_ not made of snow, so- _Wait_!" A horrible thought occurred to him. "_You're_ not going to melt, are you?" He grabbed the queen by the waist, as if she could turn into a puddle at any moment.

"I wouldn't lose sleep over it," chuckled Elsa, returning her creation's hug.

Elsa had absolutely no idea how to react to Olaf's existence. She hadn't exactly meant to create him (Really, that whole "bring snowmen to life" power had come out of left field for her), and she basically viewed him as her child of sorts. But on the other hand, Olaf didn't appear to eat, sleep, poop, or feel pain, meaning he was pretty much fine to wander off all over Arendelle without need of any actual parenting. She suspected even in a worst case scenario where Olaf melted completely, Elsa could probably just refreeze him and he'd be fine.

Also, Elsa didn't want to be rude about it, but she didn't regard Olaf as very bright, and she wasn't too confident his intelligence would ever grow. When she'd conceived of Olaf as a child, she'd pictured him as "endearingly stupid," and as far as she could tell the animated snowman acted exactly how she'd always imagined he ought to. Olaf didn't strike her as the existentialist type, though, so she doubted his relative lack of free will bothered him too much. (As a matter of fact, it didn't bother him precisely _because_ she didn't expect it to bother him. Try wrapping your head around _that_!)

That being said, Olaf did have a certain way of promoting blissful happiness.

"Well, you must really like warmth, even if you don't realize it," the snowman pointed out. "Or else why would you make _me_ like it so much?" And on that note, Olaf wandered out of the room to continue exploring the castle.

"Why _did_ you make him like warm hugs?" frowned Anna.

Elsa looked away from her sister, shrinking back against the wall. It had been one of those silly things you did as a child and were then embarrassed to admit out loud as an adult. "Because… I'd never really had one."

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Anna had her locked in a tight bear-hug. Now that she wasn't instantly freezing everything she touched, Elsa could feel a bit of what must have been heat coming off of her sister, but it wasn't quite as hot as the hot chocolate, bathwater, or eggs had been.

Just a little warmth's not so bad, Elsa decided.

Eventually, Anna ended the hug and asked, "So you've really never felt warm before now?"

Elsa shook her head sadly. "Not even before my powers went out of control," she said. "Not even before I knew I _had_ powers, I think, but I can barely remember that."

Anna held on to her sister's every word. The two had hardly begun discussing that period of time in their lives- The past few days had been hectic, to say the least, so they hadn't gotten around to it.

"I don't think I started generating proper ice until I was around four, but even before then I was always cold. Our parents used to think I was sick," Elsa explained, her voice solemn. "At first, I could only make it cold when I was feeling especially happy or sad or… or when I deliberately tried to, but it got to the point that the temperature of everything within a small radius of me would automatically lower. You could see the thermometer drop as it neared me."

"But you must've felt _something_ warm!" Anna tried to reason. "What about- I dunno- really, _really_ hot stuff?"

Elsa shook her head. "I guess I was too sheltered to ever touch anything hot enough for me to feel it. I never burned my hand on an oven or anything like that. And then after I froze your mind, it got completely out of control. You probably could've thrown boiling water in my face and it would've been cooled by the time it reached my skin.

"And, well, now that I can control my powers, that 'radius of cold' seems to have, I don't know, weakened somehow, because I can definitely feel heat _now_." Elsa rubbed her burnt tongue against the roof of her mouth. "How much longer will my tongue stay burnt, anyways?"

"Ooh, yeah, that'll last a couple days…"

"Drat!" swore Elsa (This was the strongest word her parents had ever allowed her to say).

After their talk, the royal sisters returned to the dining hall in order to eat breakfast for real this time. Most of the staff had finished their meals by now, but there was still enough left to make an audience as Elsa once again seated herself at the royal end.

Anna found herself grinning again. If anything, this incident just made her even prouder of her sister. After all, getting past the stigma of using her ice in front of other people was a pretty big step forward for Elsa, and Arendelle hadn't gotten trapped in eternal winter this time, so that was a plus.

Though it didn't escape Anna's notice that Elsa blew hard on her breakfast before putting any of it in her mouth, which left the food covered in a thin layer of frost.

Anna rolled her eyes. Baby steps, she told herself.


	3. Babysitting

Anders the butler trudged down the castle halls, muttering darkly to himself about "crazy magical teenagers" and their bathing habits. Eventually he reached the large front doors, where he let the latest guest inside. Of course, the long-awaited reopening of the castle gates had led to a substantial influx of visitors to the castle, which in turn led to a perpetually lengthy line around the entryway. However, this particular guest had been given special permission to be allowed in immediately upon arrival, though he still had to wade through the jealous glares of the other people in line.

The boy was quickly identifiable by his loathsome posture, lack of proper etiquette, and the clumpy way he walked.

"Hey there, the, uh, the girls left my reindeer here overnight," Kristoff greeted, fidgeting self-consciously in Anders' presence. This was a testament to Anders' through-the-roof levels of stuffiness because Kristoff was _never_ self-conscious.

"You'll find it in the stables, sir." Anders kept his voice level, but his eyes took a judgmental look over Kristoff, resting a particularly long time on his unmanly blond hair.

"Great, great, and it's fine if I drop in to visit with them for a minute?" Kristoff added nervously.

"Right this way, sir." The butler led Kristoff inside, wincing involuntarily as the boy tracked dirt all over the finely woven rug. It was a long, silent walk from the front entrance to the dining hall. Anders sighed in relief when Kristoff finally vanished behind the dining hall doors.

In the span of a week, the castle had gone from a quiet, dignified, albeit empty, house of royalty to a place where ice-towels dried things and princesses dated hairy mountain men. It was beginning to dawn on Anders, to his horror, that the only thing standing between order and hair-pulling madness was one elderly and overworked butler.

Why, oh why, couldn't Princess Anna have stayed with that nice Hans fellow? Now _there_ was a man who knew how to act in the presence of royalty. He probably would've been a very positive influence on the far-from-prim-and-proper princess if it hadn't been for that unfortunate "attempted murder" incident. But, hey, nobody's perfect.

Meanwhile, back in the dining hall, Kristoff reached the royal end of the table and greeted Anna with a firm hug. "Hey, how're the hottest and coldest girls in the world doing?" (And no, I will not apologize for writing that.)

"Elsa actually ate breakfast in here with everybody else today!" the princess said gleefully. "And she only accidentally froze her food once!"

"That's great!" Kristoff grinned before leaning in conspiratorially to ask, "And how did your little stint as commoners go?"

"Not as well as it could have," Elsa answered from her seat. "Several citizens didn't seem very happy with me."

"Well, who cares what other people think?" scoffed Kristoff, absently scratching his rear.

Elsa gave him a sad smile. Caring what other people thought had been the crux of the issue her entire life.

"I also made the unpleasant discovery that I can feel heat now," the queen said. "It's taken a bit of getting used to…"

"Hey, wait a minute!" Anna's eyes lit up. "Why don't we go visit the trolls? Maybe they have some magical doohickey to help Elsa deal with heat?"

"Oh, about that," Kristoff frowned, "Pabbie's been missing for the past few days- ever since the eternal winter ended, really- and he's pretty much the only troll who knows squat about magic."

"When will he be back?" asked Anna.

"Dunno," the boy shrugged. "It's not like him to just up and vanish like this. But whenever he turns up, I'll let you know."

And with that, Kristoff set off for the stables to check on his reindeer. With the "wild man" safely out of range, Anders cautiously opened the door. He crept in slowly, peering to the left and right as if another poor person could be lurking just around the corner.

When he'd determined the coast was clear, Anders asked, "Are you finished eating, my queen?" Elsa nodded. "Excellent. Now, you wished for me to remind you that you're assuming your royal duties today."

"That's right." Elsa stood up while servants cleared away the empty plates.

"Well, my queen, I understand you've decided to forgo any… _conventional_ clothing." Anders gave the more provocative regions of Elsa's ice-dress the kind of look one might normally reserve for their mortal enemy. "But might I suggest one exception?"

At his words, another servant stepped forward, this one carrying a pillow, and resting at the pillow's center was a familiar piece of jewelry. It was the Queen's Crown of Arendelle, freshly cleaned and polished.

Funny story behind that crown. It turned out it was worth more money than Anders had made in his entire life, and when he'd found out the queen had carelessly discarded it on some mountaintop, he'd been virtually inconsolable.

In his defense, Anders had been having a rather bad week. Within the span of minutes, the coronation night had gone from perfection to screaming and magic bolts of ice flying in every direction like a horrible hailstorm of overly dramatic teenage girls. And the castle was severely understaffed, which of course meant it had been up to _Anders_ to scrape ice off the ballroom floor whilst simultaneously attempting to calm the panicked masses and praying the new queen didn't inadvertently freeze the entire country to death.

So even after the queen finally controlled her powers and saved Arendelle and all that, the loss of the crown had been the last straw for Anders. Somehow, the discarding of the crown seemed even more upsetting to him than the discarding of Elsa's secret he'd spent the last two decades of his life guarding (Okay, so technically Elsa wasn't a teenager anymore, but in Anders' mind all young people fell into that category until they hit their late thirties).

Anna had tried to explain to Anders that Elsa had only cast away the crown because she was trying to express herself after years of confinement, but this failed to comfort the old man. In Anders' experience, "express myself" was teenager-speak for "I do what I _want_ and you just don't _understand_ me! Ugh, _whatever_!"

Of course, the crown had eventually been recovered, albeit unintentionally. In the period of time Arendelle was on "holiday" following the summer snowstorm, Elsa and her sister had returned to the ice palace in order to tie up some loose ends. The "loose ends" in this case being a giant, unfriendly snow monster the queen had left up there and forgotten about.

If Elsa sometimes felt she didn't know what to do with Olaf, then that went double for Marshmallow, the snowman's violence-prone "little brother" she had created for the sole purpose of scaring Anna and Kristoff away from her mountain.

She and Anna found the poor beast wandering aimlessly around the North Mountain, wearing the fateful crown upon his head. Apparently, without any Elsa to guard, Marshmallow had lost his sense of purpose in life and been reduced to clinging onto anything that reminded him of his creator.

Initially, Elsa had intended to use her powers to make Marshmallow smaller and friendlier like Olaf, but when the time had come, she hadn't had the nerve. It was puzzling, but Elsa would later claim that trying to alter one of her snowmen on such a fundamental level had felt like trying to cut off her own arm.

In the end, Elsa just left Marshmallow the way he was (after teaching him that Anna was now a friend and not a trespasser). Then she conjured up flurry clouds for him and the ice palace to ensure they didn't melt and left Marshmallow to guard the palace for when she came to visit.

Elsa would've been content to let him keep it, but Marshmallow had insisted the crown belonged to _her_, so she'd ended up returning it to the palace. Anders was a bit worried Elsa would refuse to wear it like she had her gloves (He had a horrible mental image of her crafting an ice-crown just to defy him), but after only a moment's pause the girl gently lifted the piece onto her head.

"Excellent." The slightest hint of a smile signaled Anders' approval. "The spitting image of your mother."

"Thank you," Elsa answered with a far less subtle smile. "Now it's time I got to work."

"My queen, if I may," said Anders, clearing his throat. "Now that we no longer need to swear employees to secrecy, might I suggest placing top priority on expanding the staff? Just a thought. It's not like I'm _overworked_ or anything…"

"Oh, yeah, sure," said Elsa. "Actually, Anders, I have a job in mind for you. You used to babysit Anna when she was little, didn't you? Can I ask you to watch another child for me?"

The old man raised a gray eyebrow. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Not a human child." Elsa opened the dining hall doors to call out, "_Olaaaaf_!"

"Ooh! Ooh! That's me!" No sooner had she yelled for him than the little lump of snow bounced into the room, an expression of childlike joy permanently fixed upon his face.

"Olaf, I'm going to be busy today," the queen said, bending down on her knees to meet the snowman's charcoal eyes. "Anders here will be in charge of taking care of you, okay?"

Olaf slowly turned to examine his new caretaker. For a minute, he was silent. And then he was, well, the opposite. "Yaaaaaaay! We're gonna have so much fun together and we'll run around and play games and make loud noises and you can give me piggyback rides and…"

Anders glared at Elsa. "You hate me, don't you?" he said, deadpan.

"Please, Anders!" begged the girl, a note of apology in her voice. "Just for today, I promise!"

Anders made his sourest face.

"If you do this, I'll increase the staff," Elsa offered sweetly. Anders still had half a mind to refuse, but then Elsa made puppy dog eyes at him, which not even the crotchetiest of old men could ever hope to resist.

"Confound it all, I'll do it!" Anders found himself saying, throwing up his hands in defeat.

"Hurray!" Olaf immediately gave his new friend one of his trademark warm hugs.

"Yeah, it's probably a good idea to get Olaf a babysitter," spoke up Anna. "I think he's been running around unchecked these past few days, and we don't need him destroying anything else."

"Wait." Anders' eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'anything else?'"

"I got to play with paint!" Olaf said proudly.

It was at this point the royal sisters thought it best to leave the room before Anders had a chance to change his mind. As they made their way to the queen's quarters, Anna said, ""Alright, I'm ready to do some queen-stuff!" She pumped her fist in the air. "Where do we start?"

"Oh, you don't have to come if you don't want to, Anna," said Elsa, turning towards her. "There won't be much for you to do."

"Don't be silly!" scoffed the princess. "I can keep up with all the political stuff just as well as you! Besides, we need to spend as much time together as possible to make up for the past few years, so from now on, consider us joined at the hip!"

Two hours later, Elsa was seated at the desk in her study, slowly and calmly working her way through a pile of legal documents stacked upwards towards the ceiling. The only sound produced was the occasional drip of an inkwell and the rhythmic thump of Anna, over in the corner, repeatedly banging her head against the wall.

"…I'm gonna go check on Kristoff and Sven," Anna suddenly said, moving for the exit.

"And here I thought we were joined at the hip," smirked Elsa, not turning from her task.

"Ha _ha_." The door shut behind the princess. Elsa rolled her eyes.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the dining hall, two hours had been more than enough time for Anders' babysitting to dissolve into random shouting of "Watch where you're going! For heaven's sake, slow down!"

"Wheeeee!" cheered Olaf from the back of Anna's old bicycle, which was currently hurtling out of control down the gigantic dining room table. "I don't know how to slow down!"

"The pedals!" cried the butler, running along the edge of the table in a futile effort to catch the out-of-control vehicle. "Push back against the pedals with your feet!"

Olaf glanced downwards. "I'm not sure I have any."

Anders loudly and violently cursed his life while Olaf steered the bike directly over the more expensive china.

* * *

Somehow, digging through pile after pile of legal documents had caused Elsa to lose track of time completely, which gave her a start when a servant stuck his head through the door to say, "Your Majesty, you're late for the meeting with your advisors."

It was Kai, the plump servant who had seemed to loathe the Duke of Weaseltown- more so than everybody else did, anyways.

"Oh! Right! Almost forgot!" In her hurry, Elsa jumped up and sent her papers flying. Truth be told, she was glad for the excuse to stop signing documents, though, seeing as there's never been a recorded case in human history of anyone ever enjoying doing that.

"I hope you feel up to participating in the lawmaking, my queen," said Kai, kneeling down to collect the fallen pages. "I understand these past few days have been taxing on you."

"Of course I'm up to it," Elsa said somewhat defensively. "The Circle of Advisors have been pretty much running Arendelle since I was too young to be coronated, but they haven't been able to enact any major changes without the input of a monarch. That's why I have them to thank for the last two-and-a-half-hours of my life." She pointed to the newly restacked brick of paper resting on her desk.

"Yes, well, bear in mind your advisors have been enjoying an upsurge in power in the years of your absence from the throne," pointed out Kai. "You may be of age now, but I imagine many of them still view you as the little girl who never left her room."

Elsa winced. Kai might have well have punched her in the stomach.

"I mean no disrespect, of course!" Kai hurriedly amended. "I simply mean that you ought to put thought into the first impression the council gets of you."

"I see," said Elsa. Kai exited the study, leaving her alone for a moment. "First impressions, huh?"

* * *

A tiny snowman stood in the wreckage of what had once been a neat and orderly dining hall. He was no longer in a humanoid shape- Olaf's pieces were all jumbled up, and the bicycle was in a similar state.

"I have an idea," said Anders, gasping for breath. "Why don't you find a nice, comfortable bed and have a rest? I believe it's almost nap time."

This was a strategy Anders had picked up from dealing with a four-year-old Anna. Basically, "nap time" is where the grown-up tricks the child into believing that going to sleep in the middle of the day is totally normal behavior. This makes the child feel obligated to lie on their bed and sit still despite not feeling tired whatsoever, earning the adult some peace and quiet for about three minutes.

"Oh, that's okay," said Olaf, "I'm not flesh and blood like you- I'm a pile of snow and twigs brought to life by Elsa's magic, and that means I don't sleep!"

"You. Don't. Sleep." Anders repeated each word as if they tasted vile in his mouth.

"Yeah! In fact, I pretty much never run out of energy!"

The old man made a kind of whimpering noise.

"Plus I don't need to eat and I never have to take a pee and I got impaled once and it didn't even hurt!"

"Wait. Are you saying you can't feel pain?"

"_That's_ _right_!" Olaf answered in a singsong voice.

Olaf wasn't exactly sharp enough to pick up on it, but Anders' fists had started to quiver. It was taking everything the butler had to restrain them.

* * *

Here's a secret: All politics is really just a bunch of old rich people who hate each other being locked in a room together and forced to argue about boring legal stuff. And the Council of Arendelle was no exception. The Council chamber was essentially a large, empty room with gray stone walls and an equally drab carpet, and the majority of this space was occupied by a very big but otherwise plain brown table, where about a dozen white haired old people sat and yelled at eachother.

In fact, they were right in the middle of a really good spat when the oaken doors swung open and Queen Elsa glided into the chamber, her ice-cape billowing out behind her. All the screaming, mud-slinging, and bribery came to a halt all at once.

"Sorry I'm late," said Elsa, her voice _cold_ (Dear God in heaven forgive me I have made an ice pun). "But that's alright. I see you've decided to start without me."

The politicians were deathly quiet. Eventually, the one at the head of the table gathered the courage to speak up. This was the _de facto_ head of the Advisors, so chosen because he was the youngest and most hot-blooded politician available, though he still had a sizeable bald spot on his head.

"We meant no disrespect, my queen," the man said delicately. Honestly, he was shocked to his core to even see the queen here- He'd been expecting her to return to spending all day locked in her room moping about her pitiful life. But he refrained from saying this out loud, probably because he wasn't too keep on having his fingers freeze and fall off.

"Here, allow me to get you a-"

Before he could finish, Elsa marched to the head of the room and stomped her high-heeled foot against the ground as hard as she could. Immediately, an elaborate throne of ice erupted from the floor. The queen seated herself wordlessly.

"-chair." The advisor hesitated a moment before saying, "Yes. Well, prior to your arrival, we were discussing the welfare of the citizens in light of recent… _weather_."

"Good," nodded Elsa. "We'll be sparing no expense compensating the people of Arendelle for what I put them through. And I expect aid will come to them much more quickly now that only _one_ person is in charge."

None of the advisors dared to challenge this statement. It wasn't that they thought Elsa would be such a better ruler than them so much as pretty much _anyone_ would be, seeing as in the years following the king and queen's deaths, the council had accomplished approximately zilch.

"One other thing," continued Elsa. "Now that I can control my powers, I have every intention of using them to benefit Arendelle. I already refroze one of the ice-harvesters' lakes that was melting too early, and there are bound to be other applications of my magic I haven't thought of yet."

Each council member traded glances.

"But my queen," spoke up the head, "Certain citizens are already fearful of your powers. Aren't you worried these, err, blatant displays of your abilities-" He gestured towards the ice-throne. "-will make them think you're a sorceress?"

"I _am_ a sorceress," said Elsa tightly. "And I'm never hiding who I am again. Now, if any of you have any ideas for how I can use my ice to help people, I'm open to suggestions."

At first there was silence. Then one of the advisors in the back raised a timid hand. "I- I heard you made that dress with magic," he stuttered out. "Is it made of ice, or…?"

Elsa looked down at her own clothing. "Um, I'm not too sure myself," she frowned, running her fingers over it. "It's some sort of icy fabric."

"Well, couldn't you mass-produce the cloth to sell?"

"I think it would melt without constantly being near me." Elsa shook her head. "Nice try, though."

"Besides, is there no upper limit to how much ice-cloth you can produce?" pointed out another advisor. "Wouldn't that create a supply-and-demand problem?"

"You wanna talk about a supply-and-demand problem?" said another. "Look at the ice-cutters! They sell _ice_ for a living!"

"I'm not going to ruin the economy!" snapped Elsa. "Any other suggestions?"

Apparently the Council of Advisors had gotten their creative juices flowing because Elsa suddenly received several overlapping responses:

"How about irrigation?"

"Wait, I'm confused. If you make a bunch of snow, and then it all melts, wouldn't that cause flooding?"

"I've got a good one! Hear me out! Y'know how you turned the courtyard into an ice-skating rink the other day? Well, you could open a whole _chain_ of ice-skating rinks! It'd be the awesomest-"

"ONE AT A TIME!" Elsa's raised voice caused a wave of cold air to crash over the room. All conversation froze in its tracks.

The silence was once again broken by the Head of Council. "Well… What about your snowmen?" he asked. "Can't you bring them to life or something?"

He was referring to Olaf the snowman, who was a holly jolly soul. He was made of snow, but the councilmen knew how he came to life one day (Okay, I probably deserve to die for writing that one).

"I _can_ animate snow, but…" Elsa voice trailed off, and her eyes acquired a kind of faraway gaze about them. "I've never really done it on purpose. It's only happened twice. I was feeling really powerful emotions, and they just… appeared. It was like giving birth."

The councilmen traded another round of glances. One of them muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like, "_Women_…"

* * *

"…and you're sure it's fine for me to be in the castle? Because your butler was giving me the evil eye."

"Who, Anders? Don't mind him. He's grumpy, but he means well. Usually."

Anna was currently leading her boyfriend by the hand through the winding castle halls.

"Well, it's getting late," Kristoff said after a glance out the window at the setting sun. "I'd better be heading home."

"Oh, well, I guess I can go check on Elsa," said the princess, giving her boyfriend a farewell hug. "But she's probably still sitting around signing papers, bored out of her mind-"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM _NOT_ MAKING AN ARMY OF SNOW SOLDIERS TO STORM THE GATES OF WEASELTOWN!"

Both Anna and Kristoff flinched as a door across the hall burst open, and out stormed Anna's sister, slamming it shut behind her. Her fury was practically oozing out of her- almost literally, as her anger was making her breath visible from the drop in room temperature.

"Are you alright?" asked an alarmed Anna. (Ah, assonance!)

"My advisors are all CRAZY!" snapped the Snow Queen, blasting out another round of frigid air that left Anna and Kristoff shivering. "They insinuated I ought to use my powers to overthrow neighboring countries!"

"Wow, they're pretty inventive," said Kristoff, but then in response to the look Elsa gave him, he switched to, "I mean, uh, how dare they?! You wouldn't hurt a fly!"

"Well, they're only stupid advisors, anyways!" said Anna. "You're the queen; you can do whatever you want!"

Elsa gave a small nod. Even the suggestion of violence had been enough to stir up bad memories- memories of men with crossbows storming her icy fortress, of how readily her mind had devised all the things she could have _done_ to her attackers, the way her usually-beautiful creations had taken on jagged, pointy forms, almost without her willing them to, the way she had nearly-

_No, stop_. Elsa forced herself out of that mindset. Her uneven breathing had started to make Anna and Kristoff stare.

He may have been a giant hypocrite, but Hans hadn't been wrong when he told Elsa she could never allow herself to become a monster.

"I think I've had enough of being the queen for one day," grumbled Elsa, taking her sister by the arm. "Come on, let's get out of here…"

* * *

When the trio of Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff found Anders, he was seated comfortably on a sofa in the reading room, a nice thick novel in his hands. And every so often, his reading would be interrupted by cries of "Ooh! Ooh! I see a bird!" or "Look at the sun! It's so pretty!" and so forth. These, of course, came from Olaf, who was perched on a nearby windowsill. Or at least, about a third of Olaf was.

"Anders!" Elsa admonished. "Where's Olaf's body?"

The old man glanced up from his novel to give the queen a smug smile. "The ice chest," he said proudly. "I locked it in the ice chest."

Elsa folded her arms. "When I asked you to babysit Olaf, this wasn't what I had in mind." Somehow despite the vast gulf between their ages, Elsa managed to come off as the authority figure and Anders the petulant child.

"Frankly, my queen, your snowman here ought to be forced to live outside until he's been house-trained," said Anders dryly. "Removing his head from his body is a relatively mild reprimand considering what all he's done."

The queen groaned at that last part. "Olaf, what did you do this time?"

"Isn't warmth the best?" said Olaf's disembodied head. "Did you know sometimes if you make things _really_ hot, it'll start a fire?"

"_Olaf_!"

Somehow, Elsa ended up doing a one-eighty from scolding Anders to saying, "I am so, SO sorry! Tell me what I can do to make this up to you."

"All I require is that increase in staff," said Anders. "We'll need it to return the castle to its proper state after what this hoodlum's put it through."

Elsa turned to deliberate with her sister. "What am I supposed to do with Olaf?" she asked, a hint of desperation in her voice. "I _really_ wasn't planning on having to raise a child anytime soon."

"I think Olaf's just restless," said Anna. "I mean, he's trapped in a big castle and has nothing to do with his life. I, uh, kind of know the feeling."

"Here's an idea," spoke up Kristoff. "Olaf never gave us much trouble back when we were traveling in the wilderness. Why doesn't he come stay with me for a while?"

"You noble boy!" All of a sudden, Anders was on his knees, kissing Kristoff's feet like a madman. "Bless you! Oh, bless you! I take back all the terrible things I thought about you but never said aloud!"

"Uh… Thanks?" said a somewhat weirded-out Kristoff.

As soon as he got his body back from the ice chest, Olaf was on board with the idea as well. The snowman was anxious to see Sven again, and the reindeer was no doubt anxious for another chance to devour Olaf's nose. Technically, Sven had already caught the carrot, but he'd refrained from eating it and returned it to the snowman out of some misplaced sense of pity, a decision Sven's growling stomach had later caused him to deeply regret.

With Olaf dealt with for now, Anna followed her sister down the hall towards Elsa's new bedroom.

"What a day," yawned the Snow Queen, reaching for the doorknob. "At least now that Olaf's gone, there shouldn't be any more stress." She opened the door.

"YOU ARE IN TERRIBLE DANGER!"

And standing in the doorway was Pabbie the troll.


	4. The Trials

**_Author's Note_: Thanks to the people who've reviewed so far. You guys are pretty spot-on and insightful (And yes, Anders is Alfred from Batman, only slightly more of a jerk. I can't help it. There needs to be at least one dryly sarcastic character in everything I write).**

* * *

Each sister had a unique reaction to Pabbie's sudden appearance. Elsa demanded, "What is it? What danger?" while Anna yelped in surprise and tripped over her own feet.

"Come inside," ordered the troll, ushering the girls into Elsa's bedroom. "Make sure we're alone." Elsa called off the guards already rushing to her aid and commanded them to wait outside before she followed Pabbie in.

By this time, the princess had only just pulled herself off the floor and begun frantically asking, "What's going on? What's going on?"

Once all three people were inside, Pabbie shut the door behind them and locked it (which was not the easiest task for someone of his stature). Elsa's bedroom seemed harmless enough as far as living areas went, but the old troll's eyes still darted around as if some threat would emerge from the shadows.

When none did, he judged it safe enough to climb onto a nearby table- Elsa's bed-stand, which housed a large mirror alongside the queen's sizeable collection of jewelry. Now Pabbie could address the sisters at eye level.

"You're the troll who saved Anna's life," recalled Elsa. "Why are you here? Is her mind freezing again?"

"No no no," sighed the troll, his voice weary. Like all trolls, Pabbie was about the size of a toddler and possessed a large nose and ears as well as his race's distinct stone-like flesh. His hair resembled a lion's mane of dried grass, which overall gave off the impression that Pabbie was very old. The troll currently also carried a cloth sack, though Elsa hadn't the slightest clue what it contained.

"When your eternal winter ended, I was approached by a spirit," Pabbie began. "It has been quite… _excited_ by such a powerful act of sorcery gripping the land. I have been… _tormented_ by it…" Pabbie paused for breath, and Elsa was given the uneasy impression that he was understating things. "…and it will not cease until I've delivered its message. I was forced to flee the Valley of Living Rock and venture all the way here on foot…"

In an instant, Pabbie's self-control vanished and he began shouting, "Please, Elsa, _please_, I've been given no rest, no relief! You _must_ hear the message! You must-"

"Okay, okay, I'm listening!" The queen was making an effort to be brave in front of her sister, but the troll's outburst had left her heart pounding.

Anna, however, seemed more interested than frightened. "Ooh! A spirit?"

"The ghost of a great faerie deceased long before this land was called 'Arendelle,'" said Grand Pabbie. "The spirits have always been sympathetic to my people. Like the trolls, they have a powerful love of nature, and they are also privy to knowledge mortal kind knows not. If a spirit warns of danger, it is not to be taken lightly, especially if it is willing to venture this deep into human territory to deliver it.

"The faerie despise humans. In fact, perhaps it would be best if there were no mortals present…"

It took Anna a moment to realize who he meant. "What? I'm not a mortal!" she protested. "I mean, uh, actually I guess I am, but I'm with Elsa, so it's fine!"

"Anna, I don't want you in danger," Elsa said quietly. "You should go." The queen made the mistake of pointing to the door.

"No way!" Anna scowled at the door like it had insulted her. "Besides, I'm not leaving you alone with the creepy spirit thingy."

"Alright, but you have to remain extremely respectful of the faerie," said Pabbie. "Trust me, you do _not_ want to anger it. Be still and stay quiet."

"_Fine_," grumbled Anna, folding her arms.

The old troll took hold of his cloth sack, dumping its contents all over the bed-stand. It was hard to make out in the dim lamplight, but it seemed to be a handful of thin, brown slabs with rough sides.

"The spirit's words can be interpreted through the markings on the bark," the troll explained. "It comes from some of the oldest trees in the Valley. I've spent years learning how to read the signs. Elsa, its message is for you, so _you_ must be the one to choose which slab I read."

The queen nodded and reached for the pile of bark. "But… what if I pick the wrong one?"

"You won't."

Elsa hesitated only a moment longer before selecting one of the smaller pieces from the edge of the stand, as if that was somehow "safer." There was a tense silence as Pabbie examined the bark.

"…The danger," he said slowly, "comes in the form of an enemy. Though he is mortal, he will overcome your ice. He will confront you because you recently hurt him, and it is a wound so deep and painful that he can never recover. Your struggle against this man is inevitable and will end only in death…" The troll's voice trailed off.

Elsa face fell. "You're saying I hurt someone? That I hurt him so badly he wants to kill me?"

"You wronged him, and he wants retribution," Pabbie said simply. "That's all the spirits say."

The girl was unhappy with this, of course, but in a way it was a relief. When Pabbie had first said "danger," Elsa had convinced herself it would be her losing control of her powers again.

"So some jerk just wants to kill Elsa?" scoffed Anna. "That doesn't sound so bad. If Elsa's ice won't work, then we can get her some bodyguards, wait for this guy to come looking for trouble, and then kick his-"

"Wait! I'm getting more!" Pabbie's eyes were glazed over. "The warning requires _three_ pieces of bark. One for each enemy threatening the queen."

"But you didn't say anything about that earlier-" Anna was quieted by her sister placing a hand on her shoulder. Though she wasn't using her powers, Elsa's hand still felt as if it'd been out in the freezing snow instead of the humid summertime.

"It'll be okay," Elsa reassured her. The queen stood perfectly straight, her chin high and her voice level. Anna was reminded a bit unpleasantly of the way Elsa had been at the coronation: _acting_ calm.

But nonetheless Elsa picked out the second piece of bark. This time she forced herself to choose one of the larger pieces from the middle.

Pabbie once again took a tension-filled minute to look over the wood.

Stay strong, Elsa ordered herself. For Anna.

The troll frowned, apparently confused. He turned the bark over several times in his hands, almost aimlessly, but then something seemed to catch his attention. It was the bark's reflection in the bedside mirror. Pabbie's eyes lit up with comprehension.

"The second enemy," he said, "is yourself." He jabbed a rocky finger at Elsa's chest.

The queen's entire body tensed.

"_I knew it_," she spat, impulsively jerking away from her sister. "I should _never_ have let myself think I could control my powers! How could I have _been_ so _stupid_-?"

"Hey! HEY!" This seemed to be the last straw for Anna. The princess glowered at Pabbie, her lips quivering. "What do you think you're doing? Elsa's finally got control of her powers and _you're_ undoing all that progress!"

"The words of faerie are difficult to guess," replied the troll, stoic. "They are prone to double-meanings-"

"_What good are they, then_?" Anna snapped. The fury of her reaction caused Pabbie to wince, and even Elsa seemed shocked at her.

"_Anna_-" she tried to say.

"All you're doing is barging into our home and scaring Elsa with your stupid mystic mumbo jumbo!"

"ANNA!" Elsa repeated, this time frantically enough to get her sister's attention. Her eyes were wide and fearful. "_Something's got my arm_!"

Sure enough, Elsa's right arm was jutting out from the rest of her body at an odd angle, as if dragged by some strong, invisible hand.

"Get away! Get away!" Elsa yelled. Every other part of her tried to go in the opposite direction, but the pull was too great. Elsa's arm flung itself directly at her sister's face.

Anna reacted, naturally, by yelping and tripping over her own feet again. Fortunately, this caused the possessed arm to miss her face and instead slam into the mirror. The glass was immediately frosted over.

Elsa struggled desperately, but her palm was glued to the looking glass.

The sisters could only watch, paralyzed with shock, as the frost began shifting over the mirror's surface, forming a humanoid image. The frost and snow was pooling around the glass, even varying its thickness without any input from the Snow Queen, forming a sort of "frost paint." And the portrait it formed was unmistakable. Anna's every feature, from her freckles to the eyeballs that each took up about a fourth of her face, was captured perfectly. There was even shading, accomplished by piling on the bluer frost in the crevices of the outline.

Most notably, however, was the look of utter terror, the wide-eyed scream, frozen on the painted-Anna's expression.

"Um, Elsa, are you okay?" the real Anna asked cautiously. "_You're_ not doing this, are you?" Her sister didn't answer; she was still trying in vain to remove her hand from the mirror. "Okay, this is getting a little freaky-"

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Pabbie threw his head skyward and howled in pain. Both girls' heads shot in his direction.

"Pabbie?" said Anna. "What are you-?"

The troll's eyes rolled back in their sockets, leaving behind only milky whiteness.

"You want to know the future, girl?" spat the troll. His voice sounded raspier, the inflection harsher. "Take a look!" He gestured towards the mirror.

The "frost-paint" was rapidly shifting, pooling dark thick layers down the painted-Anna's face in liquid-like movements.

_Blood_. Anna's chest tightened.

"The third enemy," Pabbie spoke, laughing coldly, "is a _monster_, unstoppable, all-powerful, and _completely_ devoted to the utter _destruction_ of _everything_ Queen Elsa holds dear!"

Elsa let out a small gasp, but it only seemed to egg the possessed troll on.

"People will suffer and die because you care about them!" he roared at the queen, bits of pebble-spit flying from his mouth. "And once you've realized how entirely you have failed to protect them, you will freeze this land! The people you've vowed to rule will grow cold and wither to _nothing_! _Everything_ will die, and you will _pay_! You will _pay_ for harboring hope where the Wight was given none! _The Wight does not forgive_!"

As the troll raved, the image on the mirror shifted, the bleeding Anna vanishing. In its place appeared an image of Arendelle as viewed from afar.

Right as Elsa managed to finally move her hand, a crack formed down the mirror. The queen dived out of the way moments before the glass went flying in all directions, scattering harmlessly on the floor.

His message finished, Pabbie closed his eyes and slumped over against the mirror frame, motionless.

"Is he…" Anna's voice trailed off.

Elsa carefully stepped around the shards of glass and tree bark littering the ground. She placed a cautious hand on the troll's rigid chest. "Still breathing," she said. Anna sighed in relief.

The sisters stood in silence, save for their heavy breathing. Then they both jumped when the door was kicked open.

"My ladies, we heard glass shattering!" explained a guard. "What's happening?" His eyes fell on the unconscious troll. "What _is_ that?"

"Get Kristoff!" ordered the queen, regaining her composure. "He knows the most about trolls and he can't have gotten far! He's riding a reindeer and my snowman is with him! Hurry!"

One of the guards dashed out the door to carry out the task while the others struggled to lift Pabbie, but this proved futile given the troll was heavy as a boulder and completely limp. A minute later, some maids came in to sweep up around them.

The faeries' words were swirling around inside Elsa's skull. _People will suffer and die because you care about them_! It felt like ice-water was running down her cheeks.

"Elsa…" The princess took a step towards her sister.

"Anna, no, get back, I can't hurt you again-" But Elsa wasn't allowed to escape Anna's tight hug.

"Everything is going to be _fine_," Anna assured her. "The prophecy is stupid. It's just bad guys coming to ruin our day, but we're not gonna let 'em. Okay?"

"I..." Elsa said quietly. "...I thought it was over... now that I can control my powers... but it's not... I shouldn't have-"

"Hey, stop, there's no 'I-shouldn't-haves!'" cut in her sister. "You haven't done anything wrong! I mean, so what if the prophecy says the second enemy is 'yourself' or whatever? What does that even mean? You know what, the faerie thingy probably made a mistake. I bet you've got some kind of evil twin or something and it was confused. Everything's fine."

Elsa gave her sister a weak smile.

Not much had changed by the time Kristoff and Olaf arrived in the bedroom. The girls had only moved to sit on Elsa's bed, mostly to get out of the maids' way while they tidied. Neither sister could sleep, of course, meaning they'd ended up simply sitting up under the covers.

Apparently the excitement was too much for Anna, because as soon as Kristoff and Olaf came in, concerned and demanding an explanation, she launched into a tirade:

"After you left Elsa and I were about to go to bed but then Pabbie showed up in Elsa's bedroom and said these spirit things had like a message of doom or something and Pabbie said I had to leave because I'm a mortal and then I said I'm not a mortal but that wasn't what I'd meant and I stayed anyways and I was supposed to be respectful of the spirits and Elsa had to pick out tree bark to tell the future and it said some guy would try to kill her and then Pabbie said Elsa was supposed to get _three_ pieces of bark and the second one made it sound like Elsa would lose control of her powers again then Elsa got upset and I got mad at Pabbie and I was maybe a little bit rude and then the spirits just flipped out and possessed Elsa's hand and made it draw a picture of me dying on the mirror in ice and then Pabbie got possessed too and he said a monster called the Wight is going to kill us all and then the mirror exploded and then Pabbie passed out and the guards came in and Elsa told them to get you Kristoff because you were raised by trolls and stuff do you know what's going on?"

She stopped to take some deep breaths.

"Oh my God!" gasped Olaf. "Anna, you never told me you weren't mortal!"

Elsa let out a tired sigh and got up from her end of the bed. "Olaf," she said, putting on her "motherly" voice, "maybe you should step outside and let the grown-ups handle this for now."

"But _I'm_ a grown-up!" protested Olaf, his voice cracking.

"You're not even a month old."

"Touché. Alrighty, then, come get me if you need some comic relief." Resigned, Olaf stepped back out the door.

Elsa looked from Kristoff to Anna, worry in her eyes. "Maybe that was a bit rude of me, but I have trouble seeing Olaf as anything but a child…"

"Aw gee, there go my plans to take him to all the best brothels," deadpanned Kristoff.

"_Kristoff_!" scolded Anna.

"I'm just kidding!"

"Now's not the best time for levity," said Elsa. "We're both a little shaken up."

"Well, I have _never_ heard of this happening before," Kristoff assured them, moving across the room to examine the unconscious Pabbie. At some point, the troll had curled himself back into a boulder in his sleep, though, which made it harder to judge his condition at a glance. "I mean, sure I've seen Grand Pabbie do some magic every now and then, but I've never seen these 'spirits' of his in person. Buuuuut, I like to think if I ever did see one, I'd have enough common sense not to tick it off." He shot a pointed look towards a certain overzealous princess.

Anna hung her head, blushing. "I was just trying to stick up for Elsa…"

"I appreciate the gesture, but I'd rather not see you hurt," said Elsa.

"I'd be more worried about _you_ getting hurt!" countered Anna. "Did you hear all that freaky stuff Pabbie said?"

"Yes, but I didn't understand it," answered the queen. "Maybe Pabbie can explain himself once he's awake. Then we can decide on a course of action. If some kind of monster is threatening us, I intend to stop it."

Anna seemed emboldened by her sister's words.

"Okay, then, not much we can do until Pabbie wakes up," shrugged Kristoff.

The three of them sat in somewhat awkward silence. Grasping for something to say, Elsa got out, "Should I… bring him to the court physician?"

"Sure," said Kristoff flatly. "I bet your doctor's treated plenty of _rocks_."

"Oh. Right."

* * *

Anders sighed contently and turned the page. In his not inconsiderable opinion, there were few joys in life greater than staying up past midnight in your favorite armchair by the fireplace with a gripping novel in your lap.

"Hi, did you miss me?" A fluffy white head inserted itself between the book and the butler.

Anders looked skyward. "Whatever I did to deserve this, _I'm sorry_!"

* * *

After another half hour, when it became apparent the boulder would not be returning to troll-shape any time soon, Kristoff threw his hands in the air and said, "Exciting as this has been, I think I'm ready to hit the hay! It's pretty late."

"Me, too!" Anna hopped up to grab her boyfriend by the arm and lead him out the door. "My bedroom's right down the hall-"

"-and there are plenty of empty staff bedrooms for Kristoff to use," cut in Elsa, her voice a note sharp. "They're on the other side of the castle."

Her sister blinked innocently. "Right. Just what I was about to say."

Personally, Kristoff wasn't too picky about where he slept, though he had to admit it would make for a refreshing change to not _literally_ be hitting the hay for once. Or so he thought. In reality, Anna found him the next morning in the stables, curled up against Sven and sleeping like a baby.

"He gets lonely without me!" Kristoff would later explain.


	5. Aftermath

Pabbie opened his eyes to find that, rather than the familiar trees of the Valley of Living Rock, he had awoken in a strange box-shaped cave filled with all sorts of human devices. Sunlight streamed in through a pane of glass in the wall. The troll had never actually been inside any human dwellings before, a fact that ought to have startled him into alertness, but the old troll ached too much to care right now.

Even uncurling himself out of his boulder-shape caused Pabbie's muscles to burn. This exhaustion had been earned by his nonstop race from the Valley to Arendelle Castle, an action that hadn't exactly been by the troll's own choice. The faerie spirit had simply appeared before him one day while Pabbie was resting and made it very clear to him that it would make his life a living hell unless he sought out the Snow Queen and delivered its prediction.

Pabbie shuddered at the memories and tried to bury them in the recesses of his mind. The troll collected himself and sat patiently in the center of the room- Elsa's bedroom, as he recalled- for something to happen. Eventually, the door crept open and a head of shaggy blond hair poked inside.

"You're up!" Kristoff sighed in relief. "Pabbie, what happened to you? All the other trolls were so worried-"

"There's much to discuss," said Pabbie, "but fetch the queen and her sister first. They need to hear this."

"Yeah, of course."

The boy hurried out the door and returned a minute later with the royal sisters. The girls looked far from well-rested. Elsa in particular sported unkempt hair and bags under her eyes, and she was slouching a few degrees, which was telling because Elsa _never_ slouched.

Her condition even extended as far as her powers. Elsa's ice-dress seemed to have morphed into a much plainer article of clothing, as if Elsa had constructed it in a hurry and left off a few details, and her presence made the room feel drafty, which was usually a sign she was troubled.

Anna, in contrast, was gripped with an almost manic energy. "What is it?" she demanded as soon as she was in the doorway. "Is the spirit back?"

"No, no…" The old troll closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "I feel drained, and I need to return to the Valley to recover. But before I do, there are pressing issues to address." Pabbie turned to Elsa. "The faerie spirit appears to have taken a vested interest in you following your eternal winter, Queen Elsa. This is highly unusual; the faerie care little for the affairs of humans, even powerful spell-casters. I consider this both a sign of your aptitude in cryomancy and the severity of the threat it warns of."

Elsa nodded slowly. "And what about its prediction?" she asked. "I'm not sure I understood it very well."

"I'm afraid I know no more than you do." Pabbie shook his head. "It's _your_ prophecy, Snow Queen. You will have to figure it out on your own. I _can_ say this, however: Be sure to consider the _exact_ wording. And that goes for any sort of magical hint or phrase.

"It baffles me how many people come to see me to cure some magical ailment or other that I tell them can _only_ be healed by an act of true love who then _assume_ it must be _romantic_ love! And then they kiss some young person they _just met_ and act _so_ shocked when it doesn't work!"

"What? Ha! That's crazy!" said Anna, perhaps a bit louder than she really needed to. "What a bunch of dopes!" She and Kristoff exchanged uneasy glances.

"I _think_ I remember the exact wording," frowned Elsa. "Three enemies are coming to challenge me. The first is a mortal man who I somehow hurt, and our fight will end with death… Oh, and he can overcome my ice.

"The second enemy is… _myself_." The queen got a lump in her throat from even having to remember that. "And the third is… the Wight, a monster that wants to hurt everyone I love."

"What is a Wight, anyways?" asked Anna.

"An undead, soulless shell of a creature bound to this world by black magic," Pabbie answered gravely. "They are said to reside in icy climates, but I've never heard confirmation of their existence. Only rumors."

"They're basically ice zombies," clarified Kristoff. "So I guess that's one enemy pegged. What about the other two?"

Anna thought for a couple seconds, then said, "Ooh! Ooh! I've got it! The first one is probably Hans back for revenge! And the second one could be an evil Elsa doppelganger with fire powers!" There was yet another awkward silence as the other three occupants of the room stared at her. "What?"

"Anna, that idea is…" Elsa took a minute to work out a way to phrase her opinion that didn't amount to "No, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" "…very creative, but let's explore some other options."

"You can speculate on your own time," said Pabbie. "There's more I need to say before I return home. In fact, I would like to speak to each sister in private." He nodded towards Kristoff and Anna. "Could you kindly step outside for a moment?"

Kristoff obediently turned to leave, but Anna hesitated and looked back at her sister. "I'm not leaving if Elsa doesn't want me to."

"I'll be fine," Elsa assured her.

Anna wasn't thrilled to be on the other side of a door from Elsa, but nevertheless she stepped out and closed it behind her.

Now that they were alone, Pabbie planted himself in the center of the bedroom while Elsa pulled out the chair from her bedside table and seated herself before him. She regarded the troll curiously. "Was there something you didn't want them to hear?"

Pabbie didn't quite meet her eyes. "They'll hate you," he said quietly.

The curiosity was replaced with hurt. "What?"

"The people of Arendelle," said the troll. "All the humans, really. They always do. I have lived hundreds of years, and hardly ever do I witness magic and mortals mix without it ending in tragedy. Humans distinguished themselves from the other races by relying on tools, by observing the world around them.

"They only trust what they can touch, see, feel… what they can understand. And magic… magic can never _be_ understood. Not in the way humans would like.

"You see, Elsa, what I told you all those years ago still holds true: _Fear will be your enemy_."

"Well, I'm not hiding who I am anymore!" snapped Elsa, rising to her feet dramatically. "I don't care if people are afraid of me! Concealing myself brought my family nothing but pain!"

"You're not the terrified child you once were," nodded Pabbie. "You can control your magic now. But if you're going to use your gift openly, you must be willing to accept the consequences of people's reactions."

"People don't have to be afraid of me!" protested Elsa. "My ice is beautiful, you've said so yourself-" To illustrate her point, she waved her hand. A flurry of crystals swirled through the air and vanished just as quickly. "-and I can use it to help people!"

At this remark, Pabbie let out another sigh and bowed his head. "I once used my magic to help people as well," he said darkly. "The trolls didn't always live in a secluded forest at the outskirts of the kingdom. My people used to work hand in hand among humans.

"I was one of the greatest healers in Europe. But it didn't matter to the humans. One day the armies of Arendelle lost a great battle because the enemy used a powerful wizard to turn the tides. After that, the king started a crusade against all magic-users, including the magical races. That man was your grandfather."

Elsa's eyes widened. "I didn't know that," she said, her voice hushed.

"By the time your father took the throne, magic was all but unheard of in Arendelle," continued Pabbie. "When he ordered all the remaining books on the subject to be rounded up and sent to the castle, I assumed he was having them burned- like father, like son. Imagine my surprise when he tracked down my tribe through some old writings, because, as it turned out, his own daughter was the youngest sorceress I've ever seen." He gave a bitter smile. "Fitting, isn't it? Fate can be a funny thing."

"Yes, hilarious," said Elsa tightly. "What are you getting at?"

"My point is that the problems you- or any other magic-user- face are ones set in place by the throne of Arendelle, and that makes it the responsibility of the monarch to fix this injustice. _Your_ responsibility."

Elsa's eyes moved towards her feet. "Alright," she said quietly. "Alright, I just… I just thought once I could finally control my powers… the hardship would be over."

The troll sighed again. "Life is rarely ever that simple. But don't look at this prophecy as a death sentence, Queen Elsa. The way I see it, the dangers coming are repercussions of your _own_ actions and choices. They are not merely fate being cruel- They are your trials, and if you can survive them, you'll have proven you have what it takes to lead Arendelle where it needs to go."

Elsa nodded slowly. She paused before saying, "After what I put them through… I owe the people of Arendelle. And I owe the trolls, too. You saved Anna's life _twice_. I don't know what I would do without her." She met Pabbie's eyes. "If you think I can be a bridge between humans and magic, then… I'm at least going to _try_."

"That's all I can ask of you. Now, I would also like to speak to your sister-" Pabbie started hobbling towards the door, but pain spasmed through his entire body (probably an aftereffect of spirit-possession), and he lost his balance. Almost impulsively, Elsa jerked her hand forward and suddenly Pabbie found himself holding a troll-sized cane made of ice.

The old troll stared at Elsa. The girl shrank back, an apology close to escaping her lips, but Grand Pabbie stopped it by giving her the kind of warm smile that suggested he was a much kinder person in less trying circumstances.

Not another word was said until Elsa was out of the room and replaced with her younger sibling.

"Why did you need to talk to Elsa alone?" Anna demanded the instant she was seated.

"I was… acquainting her with some harsh realities," Pabbie answered slowly.

Anna raised an eyebrow. "You mean you're trying to _scare her_ again?"

"Scare her?"

"Yeah, Elsa told me all about the night my mind froze!" said Anna. "Her powers were working great before then, and then you told her how dangerous her ice is and _all of a sudden_ she's freezing everything she touches! In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say it's _your_ fault she got locked in her room for years and told that that 'conceal, don't feel' boloney!"

"Oh, yes. _That_…" The old troll bowed his head and let out a prolonged sigh. "Princess Anna, my words were intended only to aid your family, but I can see they instead caused a great deal of pain. All I can give you is my deepest apologies. If we had taken another course of action, perhaps Arendelle could have avoided its early winter… You see, Anna, your parents were reluctant at first to isolate Elsa from the rest of the world, but it was I who encouraged them."

"_What_?" scoffed Anna. "_Why_? That's a terrible idea!"

"I know," said Pabbie. "But we weren't given much alternative. For one thing, I feared people's reactions to your sister's abilities would turn violent. The relationship between magic and humans is… _strained_ at the moment. There's a reason my people hide at the edge of a forest far from civilization.

"But there is another deciding factor, I'm afraid… You see, Anna, the real reason I wanted to speak to each of you in private is that I need to make something clear about the nature of your sister's power, and I didn't want to alarm her."

"What are you talking about?" frowned Anna, concern crossing her face.

"Your sister is the most powerful spell-caster I have ever seen in my very, very long life. You have to understand, sorcery is rare, and sometimes mortals are gifted with potent magic, but sending an entire country into winter? It's unheard of, especially from a sorceress with no formal training!

"You wouldn't remember this, but when your parents found my valley, Elsa was leaving a trail of solid ice behind their horse as it galloped! And she was only nine years old! A cryomancer of that age should have barely been able to sustain a snowball, let alone been conjuring a constant ice stream against her own will!"

"Elsa knows she's powerful," shrugged Anna. "What's your point?"

"Yes, but she doesn't realize to just what extent," continued Pabbie. "From what I understand, she didn't even intend to bring about the eternal winter. She did it by accident!"

"Yeah, but she can control it now!"

"But she _couldn't_ at the time. I ordered Elsa's isolation because I was afraid, Anna. It would be exceedingly easy for her abilities to inflict mortal injury. And as damaging as locking her away may have been, I was confident that if Elsa ever took a life, it would _break_ her."

Anna found herself shuddering at the thought.

"Even your close call was enough to make her lose control. And a frozen mind is no small injury. The mind is a fragile thing, and all too often damage is permanent. You were lucky. And your parents _also_ braved great risk just by being in the same room as her when she lacked control."

"Fine, but do you really think she was ever going to _get_ control the way she was treated?" Anna folded her arms. "I mean, 'conceal, don't feel?' _Really_?"

"Anna, I didn't _know_ how to teach Elsa control," sighed Pabbie, regret gripping his voice. "All that was clear to me was that her magic was tightly interwoven with her emotions, and the night I saw her, she was _terrified_. Did you know her ice was uncontrollable for _days_ following that night? Your parents were desperate, and they came to me again, and I told them what worked. They needed _results_."

"Yeah, well, y'know how _I_ got 'results' with her?" asked Anna, moving her hands to her hips.

"No, actually. I've been meaning to ask, but getting possessed by a violent faerie has a way of distracting oneself."

"I was there for her! I comforted her and told her I loved her and jumped in the way of a sword and BAM! She's all better! Why couldn't Mom and Dad have done that? Why couldn't _I_ have done that when we were still _toddlers_?"

"Wait, slow down, please," cut in the troll. "A sword?"

"Yeah, this evil jerk was gonna kill her and I wasn't having any of that!"

"I see." Pabbie looked pensive for a moment. "And I take it this also thawed your frozen heart? And I see the white streak is gone from your hair as well."

"Huh? Oh yeah." Anna self-consciously ran a hand through her now-completely-red hair.

"Anna, that was an Act of True Love," said Pabbie. "An action that made it so clear to your sister that you loved her, she could no longer deny it. Some of the most powerful known magic is fueled by self-sacrifice. And you say _that_ was the moment Elsa gained control?"

"Uh, yeah. Well, it was once she realized I wasn't dead, technically."

"It sounds to me, Anna, like this life-and-death situation was the final trigger needed to help Elsa regain control of herself," Pabbie speculated. "Sometimes it takes something dramatic to truly change a person."

"But it wouldn't have come to that in the first place if she hadn't felt unloved!" protested Anna. "Why wasn't Mom and Dad's love enough?"

"I'm afraid I can't say." Pabbie shook his head. "But bear in mind that people often don't appreciate what they have until it's gone. I don't think your Act of True Love gave Elsa love she lacked so much as it made her open her eyes. Do you understand me?"

"Alright, alright," sighed Anna. "But why did Mom and Dad have to shut _me_ out? _They_ could be there for Elsa, but not _me_?"

"They were trying to protect you."

"Well, I think they made things a lot worse."

"Yes, well… perhaps there could have been a different way," admitted Pabbie. "But at this point there's no sense dwelling on what might have been. It's clear to me that your parents did what they did because they loved you. Please don't be too hard on them or dishonor their memory. It is distressingly common for humans to discard any child who is too different, but your parents instead did everything they could for your sister. No matter their shortcoming, your parents _cared_ about both of you."

Anna shut her eyes. "Yeah, I guess you're right about that… I just wish I could've been there for Elsa sooner…"

"At any rate, I have something else to say, and you'll both want to hear this," said Pabbie. "Bring your sister in here."

Not a minute later, both royal sisters were gathered before Pabbie, Elsa standing tall, listening intently, and Anna seated in the chair, fidgeting.

"I'd meant to speak with you as soon as the eternal winter ended, but that spirit ended up distracting me," Pabbie began. "We need to discuss the night the princess's mind froze."

Both girls winced at the mention of it. Safe to say _that_ had been the worst night of their lives.

"Tell me this isn't more bad news," groaned Elsa.

"Quite the contrary," smiled the troll. "As I just finished telling your sister, her recovery is nothing short of unprecedented. The princess's act of true love healed not only her frozen heart, but her frozen mind as well. It's not exactly every day that I meet someone who's withstood having _one_ part of their soul injured, let alone _two_." He gave the danger-prone princess a bemused smirk. "And what this ultimately means is that the precautions I took to keep her mind from refreezing no longer seem necessary."

"What do you mean?" asked Elsa.

"One of the reason you and Anna were kept apart for so long," explained the troll, "was because I feared exposure to your magic might cause Anna's mind to relapse. They say eyes are the window to the soul, but sometimes hair works just as well. I believe the white streak in Anna's acted as a kind of scar on her injured soul, indicating lingering damage to her mind. Had the princess so much as touched your ice, it would have risked freezing her mind _again_. And your parents were so fearful of this that they separated you two for over a decade."

"But I touched Elsa's ice at the coronation, and my mind was fine!" pointed out Anna.

"Yes, because by removing your memories, I allowed your mind to begin healing itself," said Pabbie. "But it was a process that took years. In fact, your parents would in all likelihood have reunited you with your sister before then, if it was not for their... accident..."

For a moment, there was a solemn silence in the bedroom.

"Are you sure?" asked Anna.

Elsa closed her eyes. "They'd always promised I could leave my room for good as soon as I had my ice under control," she said. "But I'm not sure if that ever would have happened..."

"Yeah, I wouldn't exactly call 'conceal, don't feel' a winning strategy," Anna added darkly.

"It's impossible to say now," said Pabbie. "Fortunately, that tactic is clearly no longer needed, and I think they would have preferred it that way. However, there is another one of our old precautions that is still to this very moment effecting _you_, Anna."

"You mean my memories?" Anna realized. "The ones you changed?" The troll nodded.

The princess thought back to all those times she'd played "outside" in the snow with her sister. There was something creepy about _knowing_ your memories were fake but still _feeling_ like they were real.

"As I'm sure your sister has already told you by now, to prevent your mind from freezing, I was forced to purge it of all magic," said Pabbie. "And that included your memories of magic."

"Wait, are you saying Anna had _other_ magic in her?" Elsa jolted at the idea.

"Ooh, ooh, did I have ice powers too?" But Anna perked up at it.

"Doubtful." Pabbie shook his head. "It's rare for two cryomancers to even be alive at the same time, and magic cares little for blood relations when manifesting itself.

"That being said, every person has within them at least a little bit of magic. Even if they're not born a sorcerer or sorceress, a person can still study to become a witch or wizard, or else at least acquire a curse. But by stripping you of your magic, I took that potential away from you."

"There goes my career in witchcraft," snarked Anna.

Elsa started to say, "But then why…" but her voice trailed off. "Well, never mind…"

The old troll gave her a knowing look. "Let me guess," he smiled. "You want to know why I didn't remove _your_ magic, but you won't ask it aloud because the idea upsets you too much."

Elsa nodded feebly. She was a bit surprised with herself- Elsa thought she had spent the last twelve years loathing her powers, but now the idea of losing them made her knees tremble.

"Well, you've got nothing to worry about," Pabbie assured her. "You know, your parents asked me the same thing, and I'll tell you exactly what I told them: Your magic is so tightly interwoven with who you are that it can't be removed without also removing _you_. Why do you think your power is at its peak when your emotions are high, why it rages out of control when you doubt yourself…?"

"So you're saying you can't remove it?" Elsa felt more relieved at the news than she'd expected to.

"I suppose I _could_," frowned Pabbie, scratching his chin, "but it would leave you as a soulless shell, devoid of character. And your parents loved you far too much to ever do that to you."

"Okay, but what about my memories?" Anna spoke up.

"I'm getting to that," chuckled Pabbie. "What you have to keep in mind is that when I say I can 'remove magic' from a person, I don't mean that I can literally remove it, like an amputated organ. No, magic can never be completely erased. Think of it more like being locked away.

"And what can be locked…" he finished dramatically, "…can always be unlocked."


	6. Memory Lane

At first Anna simply appeared shocked. Then a smile crept across her face. "Really?" Pabbie nodded his head. "You mean, like, right now?"

"Of course," beamed the troll. "It only takes a minute."

Anna practically vibrated in place, and the happiness must've been contagious because as soon as Anna met her eyes, Elsa started grinning, too. Now those were some teeth Anna hadn't seen nearly often enough. The sheer joy the sisters felt didn't need to be expressed in words, but that hardly stopped the younger sister from blurting out, "I'm gonna get my memories back and then I'll remember our childhoods for real instead of some fake version!" And then she made a noise that can only be described as a happy sort of squeal.

Elsa could have undercut this enthusiasm by reminding her there was still that prophecy looming over their heads involving a monster wanting to kill them, but the last few days had been enough of an emotional roller-coaster as it was, so she let Anna have her moment.

"Well, what are you waiting for, Pabbie? Do some magic and fix my brain!" Anna closed her eyes and clenched her fists, expecting every detail to come flooding back any second now.

"It's not that simple," chuckled Pabbie. "The unaltered memories still exist, but they require some coercing before they'll resurface. You're going to need an 'anchor point.' You see, while they don't have 'minds' in the same way people do, inanimate objects can still house memories projected onto them by their owner so long as the item holds special significance to them."

"Uh huh," nodded Anna. This really made no sense to her, but it was magic, and the way she saw it, magic basically meant anything goes.

"In other words, for me to cast the spell, you'll need to give me a physical object closely tied to your childhood," said Pabbie. "Specifically, something related to playing with Elsa's snow, seeing as that's the primary theme of the memories I altered."

"Oh. Right. Um…" Had there been no importance assigned to the task, Anna could've come up with dozens of acceptable items, but now that she was put on the spot, her mind drew blanks. She gave her sister a pleading look, but Elsa just shrugged.

"…Maybe a favorite toy?" goaded Pabbie.

"What about those dolls you used to have?" Elsa recalled. "The ones made to look like us?"

"Oh, those got broken." Anna hung her head, her cheeks reddening. "It was after you refused to build a snowman one too many times, and the, uh, head of the Elsa doll got… ripped off. Among other things." Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"How about clothing?" spoke up Pabbie, steering the subject back on track. "Was there any particular outfit you wore to play in the snow?"

"I'm the princess," scoffed Anna. "I had, like, three hundred different outfits just to wear around the house."

"Yes, but did any of them hold sentimental value?"

"Um…" The princess took several seconds to ponder this. "Not really, no."

The troll groaned. "There must be _something_…"

"Ooh! What about Elsa herself?" offered Anna. She tugged on her sister's sleeve as if Elsa were an item on display. "She was in my childhood a bunch!"

"I said an _object_, not a _person_-"

"I wore pigtails all the time! How about my pigtails?"

"You're not quite getting this, are you?"

"How about my snow?" Elsa suddenly suggested, forming a small snowball in her hand. "It's a physical object."

Pabbie shook his head. "Snow is too impermanent," he explained. "It melts, it changes shape… Perhaps if there was some distinct pattern to it that you could recreate…"

Right at that instant, the door burst open and a somewhat frightening old man stormed his way into the bedroom. Where once his hair had been brushed perfectly straight and his suit had been crisp and tidy, now it was all a disheveled mess. And, probably completely unrelated, he carried a midget-sized snowman in his arms.

"There!" Anders screamed, roughly depositing Olaf on the carpet beside Elsa. "Stay with your maker! AND NEVER GO NEAR ME AGAIN YOU INCESSANT CRETIN!" And with that, the butler marched back out, muttering incomprehensibly under his breath.

Everyone in the bedroom stood in silence for a while.

"…I think I made a new friend!" declared a blissful Olaf.

Given the heavy-handed setup, it took Anna a surprisingly long time to realize, "Olaf! We can use Olaf as an anchor point!"

"Yeah! I'd make a great anchor point!" the snowman immediately agreed. "What's going on?"

"He's snow in a familiar shape, since we built him when we were little," elaborated Anna, "Plus, he's not _exactly_ a _person_. I mean, he's not flesh and blood, right?"

"I suppose…" Pabbie would have protested more had he not been getting the impression Olaf had roughly the IQ of a dead rock. As it was, he reluctantly agreed to give this anchor point a try.

"Hold still," he instructed the snowman, moving in front of him. It felt oddly appropriate having the two non-human midgets standing directly beside one another. Pabbie placed his palms on Olaf's temples- or rather, the indentions in the snowman's lumpy head that he _assumed_ were temples.

"Ooh, your hands are cold!" said Olaf. "Actually, since I'm made of snow, I guess _everything_ is cold to me… Also, I still don't know what's going on."

After a moment, the old troll removed his hands, surprise overtaking his face. "It seems like snowmen _can_ be anchor points, because you are filled to the brim with Elsa's and Anna's childhood memories."

"Well, yeah, they made me as kids," scoffed Olaf, as if it should've been obvious. "Though now that I think about it, I don't remember being able to think and be alive and stuff until they were grown-ups… I mean, I just woke up one day to see Elsa shooting ice everywhere, dancing around some mountaintop, and singing like a crazy woman…" He tried to shrug, but without any proper shoulders Olaf only managed to bob his twig-arms up and down.

"I'd been meaning to ask you about Olaf, actually," Elsa spoke up from the back of the room. "Why can I make snowmen come to life? Is that normal for cryomancers?"

"The ability to create life is held only by the most powerful of magic-users," answered the troll, moving in front of Olaf to face the queen. "And it is also a clear illustration that your powers extend far beyond mere snow and ice creation."

"Yeah, she can make dresses, too!" said Olaf.

"The only way to know the true extent of your powers," the troll concluded, "is to keep pushing your limits."

"But we're talking about _making life_!" Elsa faltered. "I'm not sure I ought to mess around with that… I mean, what if Olaf melts completely, but then I refreeze him? Did he die? Did I just make a copy of him…?"

Pabbie gave her a bewildered look. "I'm afraid I have no answer to such philosophical debates."

"I don't know, why don't you ask Olaf if that ever happens?" Anna cut in. "Can we please get back to fixing my brain now?"

"Alright, alright…" Pabbie placed himself between Anna and Olaf, taking each of them by the hand (or stick, in Olaf's case). "Now Anna, close your eyes and relax your mind. This should only be a moment." The princess nodded and did as she was told.

"What do I do?" asked Olaf, whispering for no real reason.

"You're supposed to be an inanimate object. Do whatever you want."

"Oh, okay." Olaf tried his hand at whistling again, and Pabbie wisely chose not to make an issue out of the bizarre hissing noise he made instead.

Elsa lurked in the back corner of the bedroom by the empty mirror frame. She watched, somewhat awed, as all three links in the human-troll-snowman chain started glowing, a faint aura of golden light enveloping them. Sometimes her own power seemed so familiar and commonplace that Elsa forgot just how, well, _magical_ magic could be.

Just as the golden light reached its peak radiance, Pabbie opened his mouth and half-chanted, half-sang:

"_Anchor help replace,_

_Her precious missing thoughts._

_The past was not erased._

_She has only forgot_."

(Of course, the verses wouldn't _really_ rhyme in English, but they rhymed in the original native language of Arendelle, so some liberty has been taken with the translation.)

As suddenly as it had come, the brilliant light vanished and all that was left were the girl, troll, and snowman standing hand-in-hand in the center of the bedroom.

Olaf had acquired a facial expression not unlike a six year old boy witnessing a dinosaur tromp through his backyard. "That… was… AWESOME! Let's do it again!"

But Elsa was less enthused. She ran straight to her sister, gasping, "Anna! Are you alright?"

"Yeah, actually, I… don't feel any different," said Anna, disappointment gripping her voice.

"Try and recall something from your childhood," Pabbie suggested as he released Anna and Olaf from his grasp.

"Okay, let's see…" The princess made a squinty face and stuck out her tongue, pulling off that rare "exact opposite of a princess" look. "When we were little, Elsa and me played in the snow all the time, and we did it… outside."

A wave of defeat hit everyone in the room (except Olaf, who still had no idea what was going on). Caught in a somewhat awkward social situation, Anna defaulted to her time-honored tactic of continuing to ramble aimlessly. "And we'd build snowmen and I always wore my mittens and, hey, remember that one winter it didn't snow very much, and I was so disappointed that you…" Her eyes lit up. "…_made it snow right there in the bedroom_."

I don't know if you've ever had lost memories restored magically, but, if the memories are pleasant, it can be one of the most wonderful sensations life has to offer. It's hard to put into words, but maybe you could say it feels like the rush you get right when you come down from the peak of the swing on the playground. One moment you can't remember, and then, whoosh, it all comes back.

The shock was enough to send Anna off her feet and introduce her butt to the rug, but when Elsa ran to her sister's aid, she found Anna with a giant, goofy grin eating away at the edges of her cheeks.

"_I remember everything_!" she shrieked gleefully, capturing her sister in a gigantic hug. "Like how we built all those snowmen- It must've been like a gazillion- and, and, and the time you froze the cat's tail, and all those times I tried your homemade snow cones, and the time we snuck into the kitchen and ate all that chocolate, and, and when Anders tried to chase us out, you made the floor ice and he slipped and couldn't work again for weeks!"

Elsa winced; she'd forgotten that last one.

"And then there was the time you made it hail all over that ugly portrait of you when you were six because you hated it so much, and you froze our tutor's tea, and-"

"I'd suggest confining your sister to bed rest for at least the next twenty-four hours," instructed Pabbie, bending down to retrieve his ice-cane. "Having memories restored may seem like a pleasant sensation, but it can leave one… _giddy_. I've seen too many people slip and hurt themselves in their excitement."

"Oh, come on, I'm totally fine!" scoffed Anna as she pulled herself to her feet. "I'll just go find Kristoff and OH AND THAT TIME ELSA FROZE MY PIGTAILS AND IT WAS SOOOO FUNNY- Oof!" Aaaaaand her butt was back on the rug.

After that it was a bit harder to protest Pabbie's advice, and Anna quickly found herself trapped in her own bedroom under the covers.

Pabbie stood at the door with Kristoff, preparing to leave. "Thank you for everything," Elsa told the old troll. "I don't know how I could ever repay you for this."

"No need. It was my magic altering the princess's mind, and that made it _my_ responsibility to handle it." Pabbie gave Elsa a meaningful look.

"Okay, but for the record, _I_ wouldn't object to repayment," said Kristoff. "I'll gladly take any repayment you have to offer." His grin meant he was only half-joking.

"Didn't we already give you a new sled?" spoke up Anna from her bed.

"Yeah, after you broke my old one!"

The boy and the troll turned to leave, but right before they did, Grand Pabbie turned back to give one last piece of cryptic advice: "Given the faerie's urgency, the prophecy will likely come to pass by the end of the summer. _Be on your guard_." And with that, the door clicked shut.

For maybe a minute, Elsa allowed herself to frown. Then she moved back towards her sister. Alone at last (Olaf had opted to remain at the castle, both to give Pabbie some peace and quiet and because the snowman didn't want his new best friend to get too lonely).

"Hey," said the mighty and powerful Snow Queen, mistress of the ice and frost and leader of the greatest kingdom of the north. "Remember the time I slipped a snowball down Kai's pants and he ran around yelling for twenty minutes?" The most dangerous sorceress this side of the equator burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

"Yeah, and then you tried to blame it on me even though it was the middle of summer and there was nowhere else the snowball could've come from!" added Princess Anna, her voice shaking with laughter of her own.

The thought of prophecies and enemies and monsters flitted through Elsa's mind again, but somehow at this particular moment it all seemed miles away.

* * *

A man was sitting at a bar. The stinky kind where all the wood is infused with dirt on a molecular level and the air smells vaguely like the beer tastes (but you stop minding after the eighth mug or so). And if you knew nothing about this person, you'd think he was merely having a friendly chat with the bartender. You don't just look at random passerby and instantly realize, "Oh, that man's every living moment is now agony and he's clinging on to the bartender's inane chatter in hopes of gleaning some sliver of information that will ultimately lead to his relief."

The bartender could best be described as large, and in the morbidly obese sense at that, but this unfortunate trait was distracted from by his impressive sideburns and thick accent. "…and vhen she drank hot chocolate, she throw a big fit and cry out 'Eeek!' like she saw little mouse, and then she freeze her cup right to this very counter-" The man rapped the wood surface with his fist to punctuate his point. "-Took hours to scrape it all off. True story."

"Yes, but what set the queen off in the first place?" the customer asked slowly, gazing into the surface of his latest glass. This man was large, too, but in the more flattering "tall, broad-shouldered" sense. One might almost think him handsome if not for (or perhaps in spite of) his considerable age, but this was undercut by the fact that his face also had this imperceptible, drained quality about it, as if he had aged a couple decades in the span of a day.

"Beats me," shrugged the bar tender, absently cleaning an old glass with a filth-encrusted cloth. "But it vasn't my service, I can promise you that. I made chocolate piping hot like all customers like."

"I see," replied the man, pondering this for a moment. "Interesting…"

"And I still don't see vhy you just _assume_ it vas queen," the bartender said as he walked off towards the back of the room. "That could have been _any_ young voman in her early twenties vith pale skin and ability to shoot ice from her hands."

Now that he was alone, the man simply sat and did nothing, opting to stare into his beer and let his mind wander until all the other voices in the crowded bar sounded more like a swarm of bees than people.

He definitely wasn't expecting a tall, rail-thin man draped in a faded gray cloak to come up and sit down in the stool right beside his. "Waitress, a drink, please!" the stranger called out to a nearby serving girl. His voice was raspy and painful to listen to, like too little butter spread over too much bread. "Extra ice."

But the man managed to ignore the newcomer. Well, at least until he was addressed by name.

"Having a good time, Adrian?"

"How do you know my name?" the former ice-harvester growled.

"Oh, I know everything about you, Adrian," said the cloaked figure. "And I happen to like what I'm hearing."

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"Ooh, direct. I like that." The man's face was obscured by his hood's shadow, but Adrian got the impression he was smirking. "You can think of me as someone just like you. Someone who wants to see a certain young woman- one of Arendelle's royalty, perhaps- suffer and die horribly."

"You have no idea what I want," said Adrian, prideful.

"Yes, but I'm a pretty good guesser. Thank you, my dear." The stranger stopped to give a respectful bow to the waitress as she placed his beverage before him. "And besides, I'm pretty certain what you _don't_ want. You don't want to spend the rest of your days sitting around filthy pubs, getting steadily drunker, lapping up any rumors of the queen's antics like a stray dog begging for scraps."

Adrian stayed silent.

"No offense, but you mortals are so _predictable_. Always wanting revenge, justice, getting even, eye for an eye, whatever you wanna call it, for every little perceived slight. But what this means is that you and me have a mutual interest, Adrian. And _that_ means _I_ get what _I_ want by helping _you_ get what _you_ want. Everyone wins! Well, except the girl. She dies." He chuckled at his own joke. "So whattaya say, pal? Are you in or are you in?"

The stranger extended a hand to shake… but it was an inhumanly thin hand, more bone than muscle, and whatever skin covered the fingers was stiff and solid black. "Whoops." He quickly retracted his arm back into the folds of his cloak, and when it reemerged it was a seemingly normal human hand, though the skin was maybe a bit _too_ smooth and _too_ white.

For some reason, Adrian declined the handshake.

"If this is sorcery, I want no part of it," he spat.

"But there is something you _do_ want," croaked the stranger's smug, hoarse voice. "And I believe you need to ask yourself how far you're willing to go to get it. You might surprise yourself." He laughed again. It wasn't mocking. He sounded genuinely amused.

"Fine." Adrian's face was stone. "But if you want me to do what I think you want me to do, you'll need to find a way around the…" His eyes flitted around, checking for eavesdroppers. "…_icing problem_. Believe me, I'd have acted a long time ago if I thought I could overcome the queen's power."

The hooded figure only laughed harder at this. "Maybe you need a visual demonstration." A milky white finger reached out and lazily tipped over his mug, spilling beer all over the countertop… beer mixed with a sizable amount of ice. "You're an ice-cutter. Tell me, what do you do when the ice grows too thick?"

Adrian watched intently.

In one swift movement, the stranger sprung a sword from his robes- a strange one, made of what appeared to be a dark violet-colored crystal- and hammered it down on the table. The purple sword embedded itself in the wood, but more importantly it also sent out a distortion, like a heat wave, that passed over the ice and left nothing in its place. The ice wasn't melted- there was no water left behind, the wave wasn't warm- The ice had simply vanished.

"It's enchanted," realized Adrian.

"Very observant," chuckled the hooded figure. "Cuts through ice like a sharp knife through flesh. Works particularly well on the magically-generated variety. Consider it my gift to you." He dropped the sword on the table and slid it towards Adrian over the puddle of beer.

The aged man slowly, carefully accepted the weapon, holding it in his arms and feeling the weight. Of course, the stranger slamming it like that had turned several heads, but Adrian found himself hardly caring. All he could focus on was the man in front of him.

"I still can't go through all her guards alone," he said, businesslike. "Were you planning on helping with that?"

"Oh, you don't need me to sully my hands for _that_," scoffed the stranger, leaning back in his chair. "I have a feeling there's no shortage of like-minded Arendelle citizens willing to join our little crusade. It's just that most of them lack your… leadership skills."

Adrian nodded.

"Besides, full-out rebellion gives the whole shebang a more personal touch, don't you think? Really get under her skin."

Adrian did _not_ nod at _this_ sentiment.

"Well, that's settled, then. I trust you know what to do from here." The stranger rose to his feet to pat his new partner on the back. Adrian didn't consider himself a coward, but he still shuddered at the contact. "Adrian, this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

"I'm not your friend," Adrian said firmly. "I don't even know your name."

"Of course you don't." At this comment, the hooded figure headed for the door, but right when it looked like he would leave, the stranger turned back and said, "Most people call me the Wight. _Au revoir_."

Adrian stayed silent for several more minutes after the stranger left, gazing at his new blade. Then he moved to his feet, paid both his and his new friend's tabs, and exited the building. From there, he marched nonstop towards the very outskirts of Arendelle, where he arrived at a far more unsavory bar, stepped in, and spent the rest of his life savings buying drinks for everyone inside. Then he raised his glass high, gathering the crowd's attention, and bellowed, "How many of you hate the queen?"

Virtually every hand in the bar was raised.


	7. Elsa's Other Power

"Anna is dead."

This time she was nine years old, and Anna was a cold little corpse sprawled out in the middle of the ballroom. The snow covering the floor began swirling into the air, windswept. And for the first time it dawned on Elsa that she had absolutely no control of her powers.

"Mama! Papa!"

Her parents were there instantly, of course, but there was nothing they could do. Mama was completely shocked and disgusted, but Papa simply gave his remaining daughter a condemning stare.

"This is getting out of hand." A steady arm reached for the scabbard hanging off his belt.

"Papa? Papa, what are you-?"

And the sword fell and the snow blew even harder and suddenly she wasn't in the ballroom but the frozen lake, and the man wielding the sword wasn't Papa and it wasn't Hans it was a tall slender man wrapped in skin so tight he looked like a skeleton and his fingers were bony and black and Elsa's eyes shot open and she was lying in bed, covered in tiny bits of ice from where she'd been sweating.

Elsa buried her head in her pillow. She hadn't had that dream in years, and the monster at the end was a new addition. The girl tried to remind herself that the dream made no sense- that her parents would have never done that to her- but when it came to dreams, those kinds of details didn't make much difference. It had still felt real.

What upset Elsa the most was that she'd actually been in a good mood prior to nodding off. The entire previous day had been spent by Anna's bedside, laughing and reminiscing over her newly restored childhood memories. In fact, Elsa had stayed up into the early hours of the morning, but now, even though she still felt exhausted, Elsa couldn't bring herself to fall back asleep. Her mind was too busy dwelling on monsters and prophecies and all the other things she had put off worrying about yesterday.

Even with her eyes closed, Elsa could see sunlight streaming through the curtains into the back of her eyelids. The queen reopened her eyes to check the old, ornate clock hanging on the wall, but at this she failed because the clock's face was obscured by a thick layer of ice. As was the rest of the clock. And the curtains. And the window. And the empty bed stand where the mirror had been. And everything else in the room, really.

Elsa groaned. This was going to become a nightly occurrence, wasn't it? She dispelled her ice with a quick wave of her arm. That sense of wonder had diminished much more quickly than she'd hoped. Oh well, at least now she could see the time of day…

_Seven o'clock_ in the morning?! The queen had slept in WAY too late! At this revelation, she practically flew out of bed. About two minutes later, Anders was let inside the bedroom by a queen with a toothbrush still in her mouth and ice-clothing morphed into some twisted halfway-point between a dress and pyjamas.

"Your bathwater's ready, Your Majesty," announced Anders, bowing low. "This time we opted to fill the tub with liquid nitrogen. I hope it's not too hot for you."

But luckily for the butler, his remark went right over the queen's head in her hurry. "Anders, perfect, we have lots to do today. First, we need to go ahead and increase the staff like you wanted. Our chief priority should be strengthening the number of guards. In fact, I think I'll need a personal bodyguard to follow me at all times.

"Next, I want scouts around the borders of the kingdom and in the city. If they hear anything unusual, I want to know about it immediately. And…"

What was that other enemy the prophecy had warned of? Oh yeah.

"And I want a ship ready to take me far away from Arendelle at a moment's notice."

Anders's bushy eyebrows had crawled up his forehead like a pair of white caterpillars. "My lady!" he blustered. "It sounds like you're expecting an attack! Is this because of that creature in your room the other night?"

"Yes," nodded the queen. "He gave me a prophecy of danger that's supposed to come true by the end of summer, so we need to act quickly."

Anders let out a small moan. He had not been in the mood to deal with _more_ magic after getting a surprise visit from a magical snowman the other night. The old butler had somehow ended up babysitting Olaf _again_ so that Elsa could spend more time with her bedridden sister, and _that_ babysitting session had gone even worse than the _last one_.

"But my queen," Anders protested, "hiring more staff alone will likely take several days-"

"Then you'd best get started _immediately_."

Anders nodded and scampered off to carry out the task. He'd learned it was best not to argue when the queen got that edge to her voice unless you were heavily insulated.

Today Elsa's bath lasted only a few minutes. It was not, in fact, in liquid nitrogen, but rather plain, lukewarm water, though by the time the maid drained it the water was pretty frigid. As soon as she was close enough to being dry, the queen had the servants do something to her hair and then threw on her crown.

By the time Elsa made it to the council meeting, she was half an hour late. The councilmen had spent the entire time sitting in terrified silence.

When it became apparent they weren't about to speak unless spoken to, Elsa somewhat breathlessly got out, "I apologize for my tardiness. Let us begin the meeting."

"…Yes," said the former head of council slowly, his eyes following the queen as she once again performed her throne-making trick. "We'd planned to spend today's session discussing the issue of trade with Weaseltown-"

"There is no issue," the queen immediately cut in, her voice tightening. "We're having nothing to do with the Southern Isles. At all. Ever."

"_Did I say Weaseltown_?"squeaked the councilman. "My mistake! I meant, um…" He frantically leafed through his papers for a less offensive subject. "The drought!" He cleared his throat. "Yes, we'd planned to discuss the drought."

"Drought?" This seemed to spark the queen's interest; it was the first Elsa had heard of any drought.

"Yes, it's a- Well, it's kind of a…" The ex-head turned to another councilman. "The Royal Head of Agriculture can explain it best."

The Head of Agriculture was a straight-shouldered, middle-aged man with a pair of well-polished spectacles. He was one of the few men in the room who didn't flinch every time the queen made a sudden movement. The man gave her a dry, academic look, as if she was just another textbook to memorize.

"Following the, err, events of your coronation," he began, absently fiddling with his glasses, "Arendelle's total crop yield fell."

"I see," nodded Elsa.

"An estimated ninety-nine percent," he finished flatly.

"Oh."

"This issue was then compounded by the country experiencing one of the hottest summers on record, thereby creating a drought that has rendered it effectively impossible to make up for the loss. This has forced us to drastically increase trade with our neighboring countries and skyrocketed the price of food, in part because one of our major potential trading partners was, err, spontaneously boycotted."

"There has to be an answer besides _Weaseltown_." Just saying the name made Elsa's stomach churn. "You people are my advisors. Any advice?"

The councilmen stayed silent at first. Then one of the younger ones raised his hand.

"Um, if the kingdom is too hot for crops to grow, m'lady, couldn't you, err…" He wasn't brave enough to finish articulating the concept, so instead he just wiggled his arms and made an accompanying "Swoosh!" sound effect with his mouth.

The queen glared at the councilman, who immediately looked highly ashamed of himself. "You know, it's okay to talk about my powers. You don't need to use euphemisms."

"Yes of course I meant no disrespect my queen!" the man blurted out. "It's just that last meeting you reacted so poorly to my plan to double the size of Arendelle-"

"_I'm not replacing the military with snowmen_!"

"Can we _please_ not start this again?" spoke up the ex-council leader. "My queen, I believe my fellow councilman was trying to ask if you are capable of magically ending the kingdom's drought."

"Oh. I, well, I," the queen spluttered, put on the spot. "I don't know. I really don't understand _what_ exactly I'm capable of, so until I do I'd rather not make any more large-scale changes."

Really, you'd think after two decades, Elsa would have had a clearer grasp on the specifics of her ice powers, but then, she'd spent a good chunk of that time desperately trying _not_ to use her magic. If you went back a week ago and asked her what she could do, Elsa probably wouldn't have included "dress making" and "animating snowmen" on the list.

"So if you can't fix this with magic, what _can_ you do about it?" asked the Head of Agriculture, breaking Elsa out of her thoughts. "You are, if I recall, expecting aid to come to the people of Arendelle much more quickly now that only _you_ are in charge of the decision making."

Every eye fell on the queen. The councilmen knew a challenge when they heard one. Elsa shrank in her icy seat.

Taxes. Elsa ended up raising taxes to offset the cost of the extra trading. Taxes! Not even on the throne for a week and she was raising _taxes_! Any citizens who didn't hate her before were definitely going to _now_! (And as a matter of fact, the whole increased taxation debacle ended up being a much bigger hit to Queen Elsa's reputation than that silly eternal winter thing could ever hope to be. That's politics for you.)

Elsa spent the time following this meeting trudging down the castle halls and feeling terrible about herself. Somehow without her brain actually telling them to, Elsa's feet carried her to Anna's bedroom, where she found the door wide open, the covers overturned, and the bed vacant.

_Anna's awake_, she realized. It occurred to Elsa that she didn't actually want to be queen at all. What Elsa _really_ wanted was to play with her sister. Elsa was, after all, like all adults, really just a little kid trapped in an adult body who occasionally felt obligated to pretend to be a grown-up.

* * *

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

"Yeah! Oh, wait." The face of a silvery-haired toddler fell. "It's the start of spring. All the snow's melted!"

"You big dummy!" scoffed her red-haired little sister, who as always was vibrating in place from the perpetual sugar high that comes with the territory of being a four year old girl. "You can make it snow whenever you want! If I had awesome ice powers, I'd build a snowman every day, even during the warm months like summer or Monday!"

The older sibling's eyes lit up. "Great idea! But… I've never made it snow before. Can I do it in the house? Will Mama and Papa get angry…?"

A mischievous grin spread across the younger sibling's face- the one that usually signaled she was about to get another one of those scrapes or bruises she was so proud of. "They won't if we don't get caught."

Anna remembered that hesitant expression cross Elsa's face as she formed the snow crystal in her palm. And how it was replaced by one of absolute wonder as the snowflake exploded, scattering its pieces all around the ballroom and falling gently to the ground.

Elsa's first snowfall.

And then the memories splintered and Anna found herself remembering smaller bits and pieces of _everything_ all at the same time. So much information, all rushing into her head at once, yet no less vivid. It felt like it had all happened yesterday.

"Wheee! Make as much snow as you can!"

"SNOWBALL FIGHT!"

"_Do you wanna build a snoooooowmaaaaaan_?"

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!

"Ugh, you can learn your times tables LATER, Elsa, I wanna PLAY!"

And just like that, in another blink of an eye, Anna was aware she was lying in bed with her eyes shut. She'd hadn't been _dreaming_, exactly- It had felt more like a mish-mash of her restored memories parading through her noggin- but she'd definitely been asleep. She could tell by the mixture of hair and drool built up in her mouth.

Anna reluctantly opened her eyes to check the dusty old clock hanging crookedly on her wall.

_One-thirty _in the evening?! The princess had woken up WAY too early! She pulled herself back under the covers.

But then Anna remembered a crazy troll had visited them the other night to say monsters would try to kill them, which meant Elsa was probably freaking out and needed her awesome sister to come to her aid. Anna rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and flopped out from under the covers.

She purposefully ignored the mirror by her bed stand (identical to Elsa's, only not currently shattered into a million pieces). After waking, the top of Anna's head had more in common with a bird's nest than a princess's hair, and laying eyes on that monstrosity would be like a reminder that she ought to actually do something about it. Instead, Anna wisely opted to roam around the castle in her pyjamas without doing a thing to her physical appearance.

The princess made a bee-line for her sister's room across the hall, but it was empty. Well, Gerda was in there, but servants didn't count. The portly woman was collecting dirty laundry, or at least attempting to- Elsa's laundry basket had remained distressingly empty ever since the queen's switch from regular clothing to her ice-dress (and other necessary articles of ice-clothing).

"Hey Gerda," greeted Anna. "Have you seen Elsa around?"

"The queen is busy in a meeting with her advisors," Gerda answered, giving Anna a stern look. "And I don't want to see her disturbed until it's over."

"Now why would you just _assume_ I'd disturb her?" Anna said with a practiced innocence. "Anywho, if she's busy, I guess I'll go grab some breakfast-"

"Not looking like _that_, you're not!" Anna tried to escape, but Gerda caught her arm in a vice grip. "If you want the gates open from now on, you need to learn to look presentable in public!"

The princess protested by making the kind of guttural honking noise a princess should never, ever make, but it was futile. Anna ended up getting dragged into the bathtub and having her hair soaked.

"_Cold_! _Cold_! _Cold_!" Anna yelped, wriggling her limbs like a caged animal.

"Sorry! The queen prefers the water this way and I just got in the habit-"

"Well, next time Elsa bathes, tell her she's CRAZY and make her take a bath like a SANE PERSON!"

Several minutes later, Anna stood in front of one of the paintings in the castle gallery. Her stomach was full of food, her hair was beautiful, she had on an exquisite dress, and she was entirely one hundred percent grumpy.

"…and Kristoff's still not back from taking Pabbie home, and Olaf went into town to explore again, so now I'm left all by myself! Didn't think I'd have to resort to talking to _you_ so soon after finally connecting with Elsa."

Anna was speaking to a portrait of a little girl, probably around three, hugging a puppy, and the dog looked absolutely miserable. Anna only talked to this one when she was in a _really_ bad mood.

"Uh huh, uh huh," Anna nodded, pausing politely to give the picture time to reply. "I know, right?"

But right at that moment, as if in answer to Anna's prayers, the gallery doors flew open, and who should descend into the room but the queen herself.

"I thought I'd find you here," grinned Anna's big sister. "The meeting was awful and boring. Want to go do something fun?"

"Oh heck yes, I want to do something fun!" The princess returned the smile, running up beside her. "What did you have in mind?"

"Ever since I built that ice palace, I've been wanting to experiment around with my powers," explained Elsa. "Think you could help me come up with some creative ideas?"

"Oh, you just made my day! Let's go!"

The girls were about to skip out of the room, overflowing with glee, but their paths were blocked by yet _another_ lame grown-up.

"My queen," said the guy, bowing.

"Admiral?" frowned Elsa. She seemed to recognize him, but personally Anna never bothered remembering the obscure staff members. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I have your personal bodyguard ready," said the Admiral. "Anders told me you gave this top priority."

"That's right," nodded Elsa. "Bring him in, then."

Anna snorted impatiently through her nose.

* * *

When the Admiral told Fritz he'd gotten the job, he'd almost thought there'd been a mistake. Good things simply didn't come to Fritz Herman Gudmund, and a lot had been riding on him getting hired by the palace, which Fritz had taken as a sign it wasn't going to happen. Fritz had even already made peace with the fact that he was likely to spend the rest of his life living with his mother (a humble reindeer herder), so he'd been pretty much completely disarmed by the news. That sense of unreality had stayed with the boy all throughout packing up his things, all throughout hugging his mother goodbye, and all throughout his journey towards Arendelle castle.

In fact, come to think of it, he was _still_ in a daze right this very minute.

It wasn't like the odds had exactly been stacked in Fritz's favor, either. He had only applied for the bodyguard position in the first place when it had become painfully apparent that an education wasn't in the cards for him. And reindeer herding was completely out of the question; Fritz was _terrified_ of reindeer. Fritz had been forced to find a job that played to his strengths, and those strengths happened to be the ability to sit very still and act polite.

At first, Fritz had been disheartened by the fact that the castle had hardly let in any new staff members in over a decade (which, in retrospect, Fritz realized, probably had something to do with those ice powers the queen apparently had), but at least that had put Fritz on the very top of a short list.

But then the new queen had revealed herself to the public for the first time, and the number of people interested in a job involving being in her presence twenty-four hours a day sharply rose. Especially from boys between the ages of seventeen to the early twenties.

Fritz wondered idly why that was, not really noticing as the Admiral led him down hallways adorned with elaborate tapestries, lifelike portraits, and even a bust that had traces of what appeared to be cake frosting on it. Those boys must have been curious about the queen's ice powers, Fritz concluded.

He himself had never actually seen the queen before. Prior to the eternal winter, she hadn't exactly been a public figure, and Fritz had missed her coronation under the assumption it would be really boring.

It occurred to Fritz that he had no idea what the queen looked like. Nobody had ever described her to him. In fact, most conversation about the new monarch steered exclusively towards her sorcery. From what Fritz understood, Queen Elsa had ice powers, and during her coronation she got really bad stage fright or something and then she flipped out and froze the whole country like a total spaz, earning her the moniker "Snow Queen."

That name gave Fritz the mental image of a much older lady, possibly draped in animal furs and/or covered in spiky icicles with maybe a polar bear-driven sleigh. And knowing his luck, she was probably one of those crazy malefic sorceresses who went through minions like a glutton through meals, and the instant Fritz made the slightest mistake, she would scream, "You FOOL! You have FAILED ME!" and then freeze him to death.

Fritz's entire body tensed the moment the Admiral called him into the gallery, where the royal sisters were waiting. He was expecting the worst, which was historically always the case in the life Fritz lead. The queen would no doubt have a crooked face, a pointed nose, a cold, uncaring gleam in her eye… In short, completely and utterly-

The door swung open.

-_gorgeous_.

Silvery blond hair. Fair skin. Skin. _Skin_! Shoulders, just… _shoulders_. Lips. Eyelashes. A dress with- Oh, a _dress_! A dress with a slit missing to expose one of her legs. One of her _bare _legs! Fritz didn't think he'd even _seen_ a bare female limb before (His mother had somewhat sheltered him). And then Fritz's eyes detected her hips and his brain short-circuited.

"Is he alright?" frowned Elsa. "He looks sick."

"Gudmund's never been inside a palace before," explained the Admiral. "He's taking in a lot of unfamiliar sights for the first time."

Was this allowed? thought Fritz wildly. Were queens _allowed_ to look like this?! _Oh God you're staring. Move your eyes, man! Quick, before she realizes! _

But Fritz's eyes weren't being very cooperative.

"He may not be the most physically imposing," said the Admiral, a note of apology in his voice (Fritz considered himself less "muscular" and more "thin as a flagpole"), "but I assure you, Mr. Gudmund is more than qualified for the job. Isn't that right, boy?" He turned to Fritz expectantly.

The queen's new bodyguard slowly opened his mouth. It felt very dry. After a moment, he managed to get out, "It's- It's an honor to serve you, m'lady." He bowed low, praying the queen wouldn't reply with something like "Sorry, I'd prefer a bodyguard who _isn't_ a lecherous pervert," or "My eyes are up here."

But instead, the queen simply said, "Pleasure to meet you," and then her attention moved away from her bodyguard and never returned.

It took a few minutes after the Admiral left for Fritz to realize the princess was _also_ in the room. She was kind of good looking, too, he guessed.

The sisters ignored him and talked amongst each other, although honestly Fritz didn't catch a word they said. Every time the queen's lips moved, they kind of enraptured his entire attention span. Fritz found himself picturing them saying things like, "_Oooh Fritz, having these terrible ice powers is sooooo hard on me! I'm glad I have a big strong man for comfort and guidance_!"

The princess was dating that commoner with the reindeer, wasn't she? _It could happen_! DON'T TAKE FRITZ'S DREAMS AWAY FROM HIM!

At some point, the royal sisters exited the gallery and made for the queen's study. They didn't really acknowledge his existence in any way, shape, or form, but Fritz figured the girls meant for him to follow them.

As the three of them moved down the hallway, the queen gliding gracefully, the princess skipping like a toddler, and Fritz trailing behind anxiously, it occurred to the boy that, given he was supposed to be Queen Elsa's twenty-four-seven bodyguard and all that, this uncomfortable way he was feeling was the state Fritz would _always_ be in for the rest of his life forever. Fritz wasn't sure if this was a blessing or a curse… He'd be hovering over the queen at mealtimes, watching her while she slept, sitting outside her door whenever she took a bath-

_Clean thoughts_, Fritz chanted to himself. _Clean thoughts, Fritz. _

When they finally reached the study, the queen halted Fritz in front of the door. "Wait outside," she ordered. "My sister and I would like some privacy."

Fritz was flustered by the centerpiece of his new religion directly addressing him, but he managed to say, "Yes, of course, my queen. Can I ask for how long?"

"Shouldn't be more than a few hours," answered the queen.

"We're experimenting!" added the princess, shooting her sister a sly look. The duo vanished behind the door, which clicked itself locked.

_Clean thoughts_, repeated Fritz.

Then, from behind the door, he heard a _squelch_ sound, then giggling, and a voice saying, "Elsa, what's gotten into you? That's cold!"

_Clean thoughts_, Fritz tried to tell himself, but then he caved in and instead thought, _Some people have all the luck_!

Of course, Fritz _was_ eventually given a break from guard duty, and despite his seemingly mild nature, he had a tendency to talk quite a bit once he had a few drinks in him. Which meant by the following Monday, every resident of Arendelle and their mother knew about the queen's "sinful relationship" with her own sister.

* * *

**_Author's Note:_ Hey, look, there's that infatuated bodyguard I promised in the summary. And no, there is no"Elsanna" in this fanfic, despite the above paragraph. This will come as either a great relief or a crushing disappointment to you, depending on who you are. **

**Also, if you're looking for a way to make me extremely happy, reviews are always welcome. The people who've reviewed so far have been great. **

**Spash out. **


	8. Good Dreams, Bad Dreams

For the record, Elsa had just thrown a snowball at her sister. It was a completely innocuous situation. Just thought I'd clarify that.

Elsa had claimed she wanted Anna's help experimenting with her magic due to the girl's creativity, but there was another, unspoken reason; namely that the sisters had stayed up late the previous night gushing about their childhoods, and now the queen wanted to relive those experiences.

And Anna certainly didn't fail to deliver. Her first suggestion for an "experiment" was to see how much snow Elsa could create all at once. Elsa replied that she had covered the entire _country_ in snow, so filling up the whole study up to the ceiling would be like nothing to her. And then both girls' eyes lit up and a few seconds later every inch of what had once been empty space was now occupied by fluffy whiteness. The queen vanished the giant cube of snow a minute later, and as per usual nothing in the snow's wake was so much as damp.

Of course, from outside, all Fritz heard was the sound of furniture banging around and then the queen's voice asking, "Are you wet?"

"Not even a little bit," came the princess's reply. "C'mon, you can do better than that!"

Fritz started to press his ear to the wood, but he had to abruptly stop when other passing staff members gave him funny looks.

Back inside the study, the royal sisters' experimenting was sidetracked slightly via an impromptu snowball fight, but eventually they got back on track when Anna asked to see how many varieties of ice-clothing Elsa could conjure up. This led to the creation of a long string of unique ice-shoes, ice-skirts, and so forth, all topped off with Anna's animated reaction when Elsa briefly put an ice-dress on _her_- She flailed around the room hollering, "Cold! Cold! Take the dress off! Take it off!" (This was, naturally, another chunk of the conversation overheard by Fritz.)

The whole ordeal culminated in Elsa wearing a gigantic icy sombrero and Anna wearing an icy recreation of a certain prince's dress jacket so she could run around saying "Ooh, look at me, I've got giant sideburns on my head because I'm overcompensating, and my twelve brothers are probably spanking me SO hard right now!"

(_Kinky_, thought Fritz.)

Eventually all the zaniness settled down and Elsa seated herself over at her writing desk to explore the more, err, _subtle_ nuances of her magic.

"Well, that was, um, highly informative," Elsa said once Anna's uncontrollable laughter finally ceased. "But let's slow down for a while and take a look at my ice up close. See, I already prepared some tools." She motioned towards the variety of items scattered about her desk, including a magnifying glass, a thermometer, a small, portable ice chest, and several glasses of water.

Anna was a bit taken aback by this- She'd honestly figured the "experimenting" was just a pretense to horse around- but she chose not to protest. Elsa performed a couple of small-scale experiments, such as making the thermometer's mercury bob up and down just by concentrating on it, though Anna predictably grew pretty bored with this.

"Look at this," said the queen. With one hand she touched her index finger to the surface of one of the glasses, freezing its contents instantly, and with the other she conjured up a perfectly round orb of ice out of thin air, setting it gently on the table. Then Elsa pointed in turn to the frozen cup of water, which magically thawed, the ice sphere, which vanished back into the nothingness it had come from, and one of the ice cubes in the open ice chest, which remained unchanged.

"It seems now that I can finally control my powers, I can dispel my own ice, but not ice that was already there," pondered Elsa. "And if I freeze preexisting water, trying to dispel it only returns it to a liquid state."

"Mmm hmm, fascinating," said Anna, who did not look remotely fascinated. "Are you done yet?"

"One more. I've been meaning to try this…" Elsa answered dismissively. "Arendelle's been suffering from a drought lately, and at the council meeting I wasn't sure if I could magically end it. See, I'd thought the most I could do was make it snow, but I was worried I would accidentally refreeze Arendelle and make it too cold for crops to grow. But I've been thinking about it, and now I'm not so sure I'm really stuck between those extremes."

"I don't follow," Anna said absently, her eyes fixed on the grandfather clock in the corner of the room.

"Just watch."

With a small flourish of her hands, Elsa conjured up another ice crystal. Then, by concentrating, she caused it to slowly, gradually morph into snow. The crystal lost its shape and fell into a heap on the table. Elsa concentrated harder on the snow pile, even straining her forehead muscles (as if that had anything to do with using magic), but the snow remained snow.

"Drat," she cursed. "I was really hoping that would work."

"Hoping what would work?" frowned Anna, though her attention was more on exploring the nooks and crannies of the study.

"I was trying to make water," explained the queen, bowing her head in defeat. "I just… I just thought it could help end the drought, and, well, ever since I was little, I've always thought drenching everyone I touch with water would be a step up from freezing them to death."

"Elsa, you know you don't do that anymore." Anna took hold of her sister's hand to illustrate her point.

"Still… Ugh, it doesn't make sense!" The queen threw up her hands, frustrated. "I can make ice and I can make snow and I can even make snow clouds like Olaf's flurry! Why can't I make _water_?"

"It's magic, it doesn't have to make sense," refuted Anna. "I mean, why did I have to get my memories wiped to stop my mind from freezing? That's just the way it works!"

"I suppose you're right," the queen reluctantly conceded. "Looks like my magic is only ever cold…"

"I _know_ I'm right," simpered Anna. Then, right at that moment, her eyes lit up again, signaling another idea taking hold in her mind. "Ooh, y'know what? Conjure up another snowball. I wanna try something."

Elsa readily complied, but she gave her sister a confused look.

"Check out what I found while I was pretending to pay attention!" As if in explanation, the princess held up a small, wooden, boxlike object proudly. "Matches!" clarified Anna. "They were in one of your desk drawers. Didn't this desk used to belong to Dad? These were probably his for when he smoked." She made a "yuck" face at the memory.

"Wait," realized Elsa, "you're not going to-" But one of the matchsticks was out of the box and lit before she could even finish. The queen's eyes fell on the flames, her entire body tensing.

Her sister, unfortunately, wasn't the most attentive person ever, and she cheerily carried on with her experiment. "See, you said you can't make water," Anna explained, swiping the snowball from the distracted Elsa's hand and holding it under the flame. "But then I remembered how Olaf started melting back when he saved me from Hans and I realized, duh, you totally _can_ make water-" As she spoke, the snowball began changing into a puddle and dripping onto the desk. "-You just have to let yourself get warm."

"You've proved your point," said Elsa, a bead of sweat forming on her brow. "Now put the fire out." Anna absent-mindedly swished the match around with her fingers, and each time Elsa's eyes followed the burning tip's movements exactly.

"See, _that's_ probably why you can't make water!" concluded Anna. "Every time you start to get warm, you flip out about it!"

"Put the fire out," Elsa repeated quietly.

Anna sighed and shook her head. "Elsa, it's just a tiny bit of fire. And I know I'm clumsy, but I'm not _that_ clumsy. The match is _not _going to hurt you! See?"

It was at this point Anna made the mistake of moving the flame closer to Elsa's face.

* * *

It was when he heard the queen's distinct voice scream, "I SAID PUT IT OUT!" followed by the sounds of the princess's far less coherent shrieks that Fritz finally vowed to himself, _Oh that is IT! I don't care if it gets me fired! I'm seeing what's going on in there!_ He tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked tight.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" came a frantic voice from behind the door.

"_I can't feel my fingers_!" came another, far more frantic one.

This startled Fritz enough that he made an effort the break the door down. And by "effort," I mean he ended up on the floor beneath the unmoved door, nursing an injured shoulder.

Just as Fritz returned to his feet, the door swung itself open and he found himself face-to-face with the object of his deepest desires. It was almost enough to send Fritz back to the floor.

"Fetch hot water!" the queen ordered him. "Quickly!"

Fritz scampered off to complete the task, but the poor bodyguard was new to the castle, and so it probably took him several minutes longer than the queen would have liked to finally return to the study with a steaming bucket.

"I'm here! I'm here! What's going on?" Fritz panted out, his voice reaching a pitch only attainable by the rare throat of a seventeen-year-old boy who hasn't gone through puberty yet.

Queen Elsa ignored him and immediately grabbed her sister's hand to dunk it in the water.

In a futile attempt to understand what the heck was going on, Fritz glanced around the room. His eyes fell on a small matchbox and a handful of accompanying matches, all covered in ice and scattered across the floor.

"Can you move your fingers?" the queen demanded of the princess.

"Elsa, I'm fine, you just startled me-" the princess tried to say, but her sister wasn't hearing it.

"We need to get you to a doctor! Ugh, I'm such an idiot, this is all my-"

"ELSA! It-was-not-your-fault-and-I-am-totally-fine!" Anna said through gritted teeth. She wiggled all the fingers of her afflicted hand, almost defiantly.

"But-"

"Trust me, I _know_ what getting my heart or mind frozen feels like. You just nipped my fingers."

Granted he hadn't known her for very long, but Fritz had never seen the queen lose her composure like this. Frankly, he wanted to give her a hug, but something told him that would be a bad idea.

Elsa seemed on the verge of tears, her lips trembling. "I am _so_ sor-"

"_Don't_ apologize!" the princess practically snarled with an uncharacteristic ferocity that shocked both the queen and her bodyguard. "This was _my_ fault, Elsa! You clearly have some kind of phobia of heat and I just shoved some into your face like a complete jerk."

The queen hesitated a moment before replying. "I just… Well, at any rate, I'm glad you're not hurt."

There wasn't much else to say after that. The sisters hugged and tried to calm each other down, and after a few more minutes Elsa announced she was turning in early for the night and trudged out of the room. This left Anna alone with the bodyguard.

"Err, pardon me, Your Highness, but…" Fritz began hesitantly, "is it always this, err, _dramatic_ around here?"

"Actually, I'd say any situation that doesn't end with Arendelle trapped in eternal winter is pretty calm for Elsa," the princess answered dryly.

Fritz gulped. He was beginning to wonder what he had gotten himself into. Really, he knew he ought to follow after the queen, what with him being her bodyguard and all, but Fritz felt he needed a minute to compose himself.

"I know all about your little crush, by the way," Anna suddenly said, shooting the boy a knowing smirk.

Aaaaaaand there went Fritz's composure.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he choked out, his voice going all squeaky.

"Oh come on, it's written all over your face!" giggled the princess. She pointed a finger at the offending face, every inch of which was currently bright crimson. "Look, it's cute and all, and I hate to disappoint you, but I already have a boyfriend. Sorry, that's the way it goes."

And with that, Princess Anna skipped out the door.

Fritz shook his head slowly, his face meeting his palm.

After that, the bodyguard left to go find the queen. On his way to her bedroom, he happened to run into the Admiral again- a tall, broad-shouldered man whose judgmental stare asked, "Aren't you supposed to be guarding the queen?" without his mouth having to say anything.

"Oh, A-A-Admiral!" squeaked Fritz, self-consciously adjusting the buttons on his uniform. "The queen is, err, just going to bed. I've been meaning to ask you, does she get a separate bodyguard for night shifts or…?"

"Haven't gotten around to hiring one yet," shrugged the Admiral. "But we can't leave the queen unprotected all night, now can we? You'll just have to keep at it for the next few days." He gave the boy an affectionate pat on the back, managing to hit the exact part of Fritz's shoulder that was bruised.

"Buh-But-But when do _I_ get to sleep?" whimpered Fritz.

"I'm sure you'll work something out." And with that, the Admiral disappeared down the hall, leaving Fritz alone once again.

Fritz fumed internally all the way up the stairs to the royal bedchambers, where he opened Elsa's door a crack to find her already sound asleep. A beam of lamplight illuminated the still form of the queen, halfway under her quilts and adorned in a nightgown of the same color and texture as her usual dress.

_Her pyjamas match her dress,_ Fritz realized. _Oh my God, that's adorable._ The boy was tempted to continue staring at the sleeping girl before him, but even he could tell that would be crossing way over the thin line between "endearing crush" and "skeevy stalker." Reluctantly, he closed the door back.

Now Fritz was subjected to the new and exciting experience of staying up past his bedtime in a totally silent, vacant hallway for hours on end.

_An assassin could come for her at any moment_, Fritz tried to convince himself. Even though rationally, he knew this was true, after ten minutes with no murder attempt, his brain was having trouble buying it. Not that Fritz knew it had been ten minutes, of course. There was no clock in his range of vision, so for all he knew he could've been standing there for ten _hours_. And even if there had been one, knowing the time probably would've just made this endeavor even more maddening. Instead, Fritz was simply left with the sensation he was living in a timeless void.

Shockingly enough, Fritz's thoughts drifted back towards the queen, specifically her aesthetics. Despite this sort of thing now occupying the brunt of his every thought, Fritz wasn't sure he _lusted _after Elsa, exactly, in the same way an art lover doesn't exactly want to smear their grubby finger prints all over the Mona Lisa. Besides, he figured, it would probably be too cold to-

_Stop thinking about __**that**_, scolded the tiny, logical part of Fritz's brain. _It's never going to happen._

Great. So now not only did Fritz have to stay up all night on the lookout for nonexistent assassins, he had to go the entire night without thinking about _**that**_! If Momma only knew what'd been going through her boy's head, she would be _so_ _ashamed_.

_Fine, fine, think about something else. Anything else_, Fritz told himself. _Just… whatever you do, don't… fall… alsee…_

The bedroom door creaked open, and out crept a gorgeous woman with creamy skin and hair like silver.

"Ohhh, Fritz," she cooed, wrapping her arms around him. "I can't believe I never noticed you before. You're so much more attractive than my sister!"

"Yeah. I am…" realized Fritz.

"Just look at us," giggled Elsa. "All alone in this dark hallway… just the two of us… nobody else around…" She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "_We could do anything we want_…"

"Yeah…" said Fritz.

"We could even… SING A ROMANTIC DUET!"

"YAAAAAY!" cheered Fritz.

All of a sudden, the two of them were atop the castle's clock tower, dancing the robot and singing in unison:

"_Our mental synchronization,_

_Can have but one explanation_!"

"_You_-"

"_And I_-"

"_Were_-"

"_Just_-"

"_Meant to_-"

"OH GOD I KILLED THEM OH GOD-!"

Wait a minute, realized Fritz. That wasn't how the song went!

His eyes shot open, and he was back, alone, in the bedchambers hallway, slumped against the wall. Well, that was a spooky dream, he told himself, but like Momma always said, dreams aren't real, so they can't hurt-

"OH GOD I KILLED THEM I'M BURNING SHE'S DEAD-!"

_That_ dispelled Fritz's grogginess.

"My queen, are you alright-?" Fritz flung open the bedroom door and was greeted by a bolt of magic whizzing by his ear. It struck the far wall behind him, freezing the wallpaper in a thick blanket of ice.

_Thaaaaaat could have been my face_, thought Fritz.

This was the boy's first encounter with the queen's magic, he realized. In all honesty, he'd almost forgotten she even _had_ ice powers, since in his eyes that was, err, not her most notable feature.

Though he was ashamed to admit it to himself, Fritz was half-considering fleeing in terror and finding someone brave enough to venture towards the queen. But then he risked another peek in the doorway. The same facial features he had grown infatuated with were now contorted by fear into horrible mockeries of themselves. The girl's eyes were shut tight, but you could still practically see the pain behind them, and on top of all that the queen was spasming uncontrollably, coating random sections of her bedroom with glacier-thick ice. It struck Fritz for the first time just how insanely _young_ the new queen was.

Fritz took a deep breath and charged inside.

It felt like he'd just stepped into the North Pole. The poor boy made a mental note that so long as he was the queen's bodyguard, he ought to dress in heavier clothing- yes, even in the dead of a sweltering summer- and then he kind of skidded clumsily over the skating rink of a floor towards Elsa's bed.

"Oh God she's dead I'm burning…" the queen repeated, more quietly than before. Fritz swore he could hear her heart slamming repeatedly against her chest.

There were vapors fuming off the queen's skin like it was dry ice.

_Here goes nothing_, thought Fritz. He exhaled through his nose and then grabbed the queen by the shoulders to give her a good shake.

"Queen Elsa? Queen Elsa, you have to wake-"

His hands were on fire. This is how Fritz made the discovery that, if it's cold enough, ice can burn just as badly as flames. In fact, it was actually his howls of pain that finally woke the queen from her spell.

To her credit, Elsa managed to deduce what was going on almost as soon as she opened her eyes, and every last speck of ice in the room vanished shortly afterwards. The queen took another several minutes to sit up in bed and wait for her breathing to slow.

When he judged her calm enough to speak, Fritz asked, "My queen, are you alright?"

"Are _you_ alright?" countered Elsa, giving her bodyguard a look that was equal parts concerned and horrified. "I didn't…?" She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought.

"No, no, I'm fine," answered a flustered Fritz. "And, I mean, it's my job, so even if I wasn't, I knew the risks when I…" His words trailed off awkwardly.

"What happened?" Elsa asked, her voice a whisper.

"You were screaming in your sleep, and you started shooting off ice," explained Fritz. "And you were, um, spasming a lot, too."

The queen stared at her own palms. "I… I had no idea," she said faintly. "If I had known I was… Well, at any rate, I am so, _so_ sorry for what I just put you through-"

"Don't worry about me- You're the one who should be…" began Fritz, flustered once again. "Um, I know what I'll do. If you think you can sit tight for a minute, I'll go get a physician to-"

As he spoke, Fritz headed for the door, but he flinched quite spectacularly when the doorframe suddenly found itself sealed by a wall of solid ice.

"_No_." Fritz spun around to find, to his surprise, Elsa giving him a dark glare. "You tell _no one_ about this. Understand?"

Fritz nodded slowly.

"Okay. I'm going to try and go back to sleep. I'll deal with this in the morning when my brain isn't half-awake." The queen buried herself back beneath the covers before adding, "Stay by my bedside and wake me immediately if it starts to happen again."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Not another word was exchanged between the two the entire rest of the night.

It occurred to Fritz that the queen hadn't dispelled the ice over the doorway, meaning he was basically trapped in here until the queen decided to let him out, and she had already fallen back asleep. About two seconds after this realization, Fritz also realized that he really, _really_ needed to use the restroom.

Fritz stood in agonized silence, watching the queen's chest rise and fall much more steadily than before. It occurred to him that from the moment he'd laid eyes on her, Queen Elsa had been the most beautiful thing Fritz had ever seen. And now she also held the distinction of being the most terrifying.


	9. Weakness

The nightmares had not come again, but that didn't mean Elsa had pleasant dreams. She could feel them lurking at the edges of her consciousness, biding their time, waiting until she was again vulnerable enough to ANNA IS DEAD YOU KILLED HER EVERYTHING IS BURNING.

It had seeped in for less than a second before she opened her eyes, transporting Elsa back to her own bed, the covers wrapped around her tightly as a straightjacket. After untangling herself, the queen sat up and reached for her bedside table. Force of habit was telling her hands to put on gloves.

Oh yeah, she didn't wear those anymore, Elsa suddenly remembered. Throwing the stupid things away had felt incredibly good in the moment, but now for the first time since that fateful night, Elsa asked herself if she had really made the wisest choice. The events of the previous night forced their way through her head.

Well, it probably didn't matter either way. Elsa had long suspected the gloves were merely a placebo. After all, she'd only been nine, and her parents had grown pretty desperate to appease her. Besides, Elsa had overpowered those shackles Hans had cuffed her in, hadn't she, and those were much thicker than the flimsy gloves.

The queen was wrenched from her thoughts by the sudden awareness of eyes boring into the back of her neck. She spun around, heart racing, but it was just that one bodyguard whose name escaped Elsa at the moment.

The guard winced at her sudden movement. He was just a scrawny little boy, barely seventeen by the looks of him, tucked inside an ill-fitting emerald uniform of the Royal Guards. Kind of a plain face topped with boring brown hair, though his head happened to be a little on the lumpy side, so that was pretty distinct. Teenage boys were a foreign species to Elsa (what with being locked in her bedroom for a decade and all), but she got the impression Anna had lucked out with Kristoff as far as looks went.

Of course, presently Elsa wasn't one to talk. She wasn't exactly thrilled to expose some stranger to her post-waking self, who sported messy hair (not on the level of Anna's, but still), un-brushed teeth, completely absent makeup, and a thin layer of frozen sweat.

(She was being a bit hard on herself. As far as Fritz was concerned, any Elsa was good Elsa.)

"Guh-Good morning, my queen," squeaked the boy, bowing low. The poor thing was clearly terrified of her, and who could blame him? She _had _nearly frozen him to death last night. "No more incidents during the night. Err, I don't suppose I could ask you to, err, clear the doorway, please?" He gestured towards the open doorframe, which was still obstructed by a sheet of thick ice.

Ugh, had she left that there all night? Elsa hurriedly vanished the wall, which also handily erased the puddle on the carpet from where it had partially melted. And then while she was at it, Elsa thawed her frozen sweat because, seriously, _eww_.

"Thank you Your Majesty thank you thank you thank you!" The guard sprinted out the door the instant it was cleared, but a minute later he poked his head back through the frame to ask, "Which way is the men's room? I'm, uh, I'm new around here."

The queen impatiently directed the boy, then slinked out of bed and into her personal washroom (I suppose Fritz could've used that one if he really needed to, but I imagine relieving yourself in the queen's lavatory isn't kosher).

Elsa couldn't say she was quite as happy as she'd been the time she'd brushed her teeth three days ago. Frankly, she was embarrassed- embarrassed she'd nearly hurt someone _twice_ yesterday and embarrassed she'd apparently had some sort of night terror without even realizing it. Had she been having those the other two nights, too? She _had_ awoken to a frozen bedroom both times, and she'd been shooting off ice during _this_ episode…

And the worst part was she'd actually let herself think she was in control of her powers! How could she keep telling herself that when she was freezing in her sleep and every time she got too warm she completely-

_Oh God. The fire_. It was dancing in front of her eyes right now, a little glowing flicker of heat waiting to inflict burning and smoke and dead sisters and-

The sink was overflowing. The splatter of water was enough to bring Elsa back to reality, where she swore "Drat!" and hurriedly fiddled with the sink handle.

_Get a hold of yourself_, Elsa ordered herself. It was just the gas lamp. Just the gas lamp.

The queen drained the sink and shook her head at the considerable puddle covering the floor. She'd have to get that-boy-whose-name-escaped-her to mop up once he got back (At some point Elsa forgot he was her bodyguard and just started treating him like her personal servant, and it's not like Fritz would ever object, bless his heart).

By the time her bodyguard returned, Elsa was looking far more presentable- ice-clothing back into dress form, eye-shadow back in its proper place on her eyelids, her hair back in that… over-the-shoulder braid thingy she had going on.

Fritz had tried to look his best, too, brushing his hair straight and rinsing out his mouth, but really, he was rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.

The words "YoulooklovelytodayQueenElsa" clawed their way out of Fritz's mouth before he could stop them, but the queen wasn't really listening, which was probably for the best.

She was too busy thinking, _Don't mention last night, don't mention last night, don't-_

"So about last night," said the boy. "You don't want me to tell anyone? Not even your sister?"

"_Especially _not my sister," Elsa answered curtly. "There's nothing she can do about it. It would just cause undue worry."

"I understand, Your Highness."

"And- And besides," she added, speaking more to herself than to him, "I don't want to be seen as weak." She immediately regretted saying it out loud, but her bodyguard simply nodded and didn't press the issue.

Next came a fun interlude where Elsa had to explain why her servant needed to mop up by the washroom sink ("The faucet was stuck!"), which he did without complaint. Then came a knock at the door, which her bodyguard opened for her.

Anders's gut reaction was to shoot Fritz his patented "Why is a teenage boy in the queen's bedroom?" death glare (It was nearly enough to give the poor boy a heart attack), but then he realized it was just the bodyguard and eased up. Slightly.

"Bathwater's ready," the old man announced. "And I hope your bodyguard has been to your liking, Your Highness?"

"He's fine," said Elsa (This small nod to his existence was enough to make Fritz's heart do cartwheels). "What about the other tasks I gave you?"

"No reports of any monsters," answered Anders. "Well, actually, there _have_ been sightings of a giant, white beast roaming the North Mountain, but if I recall, that one is yours?"

(_Wait, what? _thought Fritz.)

Elsa nodded. "And the ship?"

"Yes. I'd been meaning to speak to you about that," the butler replied slowly. "May I ask how this boat relates to the alleged 'prophecy of doom'?"

The queen sighed. She'd been hoping to avoid this kind of interrogation. "The prophecy said I'm going to lose control of my powers again, and when that happens I want to get over the ocean as quickly as possible. Arendelle already took enough damage from the last eternal winter."

"I see." Anders closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his posture remaining perfectly straight. "In that case, my answer is 'no.'"

"_No_?" repeated the queen, eyebrows raising.

"As in, 'No, I will _not_ help you acquire a ship,'" clarified the butler.

"Are you defying me?" Elsa didn't sound angry. Just completely shocked.

"Yes," came Anders's blunt reply. "Queen Elsa, are you familiar with the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

The queen's face remained blank.

"When your grandfather, the king before your father, was a boy," said Anders, "he received a prophecy that a group of trolls would conspire to murder him. This is why he persecuted trolls so heavily during his crusade against magic. The king tried to drive them from the kingdom entirely, but he missed a handful of factions. His actions enraged one of these surviving factions so badly that they broke into this very castle and splattered the king's brains with a rock."

"Is there a point to this?" asked Elsa, growing cross.

"In my seventy years on this earth, including a time long ago, before magic was driven underground, I have never once seen a prophecy so straightforward that some clever mortal can outsmart it," Anders said sternly. "And if you go around telling yourself you're going to fail horribly, then it's _definitely _going to come true."

The queen's cheeks, usually unnaturally pale, were getting a tint of red in them. Sure, Anders could be a bit more free-speaking than most servants, but he hadn't reprimanded Elsa like _this_ since she was still a princess.

"Besides, do you really think sailing over the ocean would help anything?" spat Anders. "Do you think it would _help _you regain control of your powers? And have you even considered what it would do to Princess Anna to see _another_ family member vanish all of a sudden in a boat?"

A ten-pound weight had strung itself around Elsa's gut. "B-Buh-But what am I _supposed_ to do?"

"I don't know, maybe instead of running away _again_, you can actually find the bravery to face your fears with your head held high for once?"

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "I'm the queen. Stop speaking to me this way."

"As you wish, Your Highness." Anders turned towards the doorway. "The bathwater is ready whenever you are. We made it cold because we know warm water is too different and uncomfortable for you."

"_Leave_!" Elsa shouted. The door slammed shut without another word.

The queen stood in silence for a while, her shoulders bobbing up and down. Her bodyguard, meanwhile, had a new facial expression that heralded the fact that he now officially had no idea what was happening.

"…Don't want to be seen as weak," Elsa repeated faintly.

* * *

Sitting outside the door while the queen took a bath had not been quite the experience Fritz had imagined. Somehow instead of listening attentively for every splash and trying to fill in the resulting mental image, Fritz found his thoughts dwelling on monsters and prophecies of doom and eternal winters. He suspected he was getting in over his head just by being as involved as he already was in the whole affair.

The boy had begun reluctantly replacing his fantasies of marrying Elsa and fathering three beautiful children with fantasies of something, anything at all, happening to just make her stop being sad. Fritz did, at least, like to imagine _he _would be the catalyst for such a thing, but then that would probably require Fritz to articulate a coherent thought to a gorgeous woman, which would be a pretty advanced action for him.

Bath time came and went and soon enough Elsa and her bodyguard headed down to the dining hall for breakfast. No council meeting today, so the queen was in no hurry. Fritz figured he was also supposed to get food now- Really, he'd been thrown head-first into this job with very little instruction, meaning Fritz was forced to make some assumptions necessary for basic survival until anyone told him otherwise.

The boy somewhat guiltily piled his plate full of "rich people food." He didn't even know the names for half the stuff he picked out, but it had to taste better than potatoes and dry cheese, which is what reindeer herders subsist on when they're particularly well off financially.

Fritz chose a seat at the royal end of the huge dining table. He, um, probably wasn't supposed to be there, but Fritz wanted to sit as close to the queen as he could get away with. Y'know, so he could guard her better. Yeah. To be fair, Fritz _did_ make sure to put at least three chairs between himself and the queen. Wouldn't want anyone to think they were sitting _together_, now did they? Ha ha, no, that'd just be awkward.

Elsa started peeling a banana. He wasn't sure why, but Fritz had trouble tearing his eyes away from it.

The queen seemed a bit too lost in thought to eat properly, though. As she fiddled with the fruit's peel, she muttered something testily under her breath about "imported food taxes." Without really watching what she was doing, the queen idly infused the banana with frost and then snapped the frozen fruit cleanly in half.

Fritz stealthily crossed his legs under the table.

"What's it like to be brave?" the queen suddenly said aloud. "Anna's brave. She climbed a mountain to find me. She jumped in front of Hans's sword. I bet _she_ never has nightmares. All _I've_ ever done is run away. The only reason I was even brave enough to 'let it go' was because I thought I was alone and too far away to hurt anyone."

Fritz was going crazy here. What even _was_ this? The princess was mountain climbing and jumping into swords now? Fritz felt like Queen Elsa was speaking some secret code mere mortals like himself weren't privy to. She had let something go? What did that even _mean_? Was "it" some kind of magical Snow Queen-monster she'd been stopping from eating Arendelle, and now she'd released it to terrorize the countryside? Fritz didn't know! HE WAS JUST A POOR FARM BOY! YOU COULDN'T PUT THIS KIND OF PRESSURE ON HIM!

"Well?" The queen gave the boy a pointed look. "What's it like to be brave?"

It took Fritz another second to realize she wasn't being rhetorical. He honestly had no clue how to reply, so he ended up just blathering out the truth:

"Oh, uh, well, I wouldn't really know myself. I mean, last night, when I, uh, risked getting frozen to wake you and stuff, err, well, I don't think I was being brave or anything. I just, uh… I just didn't want _you_ to get hurt… more than I didn't want _me_ to get hurt." Then he quickly added "Your Majesty" to the end. Y'know, to make it sound more formal.

Queen Elsa simply said, "I see," then returned to picking at her food.

Even though the queen's presence dropped the room temperature several degrees, Fritz was beginning to sweat.

* * *

Kristoff liked to think he lived a pretty normal life. He got up at the crack of dawn and fed his reindeer and ate the other half of the reindeer's meal for breakfast, and sometimes he went to visit his family, who were magical rock trolls. Just like everybody else.

And then some crazy girl had waltzed into his life and thrown carrots at his face and destroyed his sled and then _all of a sudden_ his life had become strange.

But then after he'd accompanied said crazy girl on an adventure up a mountain, befriended a talking snowman, visited an ice palace, gotten chased by a giant snow monster, and then saved the kingdom from eternal winter by NOT kissing his true love, _then_ Kristoff had kindled the hope that maybe things would settle down and he could get back to living a completely normal life that just happened to involve dating a crazy princess with a sister who doubled as a walking weapon of mass destruction whose trigger was emotional turmoil.

But this, evidently, had been too much to hope for, because then Grand Pabbie had barged in to announce a monster was going to kill everyone and stuff.

Kristoff really didn't want this. What he really wanted was to deliver ice, make out with his girlfriend, and NOT get killed by a rampaging monster! Was that too much to ask?

The boy had tried to get back to Arendelle as quickly as possible after dropping off Pabbie back in the Valley of Living Rock, but his adoptive family had had other ideas. Kristoff had ended up staying a few days to give the curious trolls a rundown of everything that had happened since the "eternal winter" ordeal.

His adopted mom, Bulda, had been particularly interested in Kristoff's relationship with the princess and congratulated him on "stealing her out from under the nose of that other guy." Kristoff explained that Hans had turned out to be an evil jerk, but oddly it didn't seem to matter to the trolls one way or the other.

Kristoff had tried to impress upon them that returning to Arendelle to check on the royal sisters was kind of urgent thanks to this prophecy business, but the troll clan had a bad habit of getting their priorities totally out of order. Like the time Kristoff had tripped and cut himself on a rock, and the trolls had nearly let him bleed to death because they were too busy singing some pointless musical number.

Right as Kristoff was preparing to mount Sven and return to civilization, he was stopped by none other than Pabbie. This surprised Kristoff- the old troll had hardly spoken a word during their return trip, as getting possessed by restless spirits has a tendency to leave one exhausted.

"Kristoff, the night we took you in, do you know what the first thing I saw was?" began Pabbie. "The very same night the king and queen came to this valley, begging me to save their daughter?" Kristoff shook his head. "I saw an opportunity. Now the royal family is indebted to the troll race, and the human on the throne is one who by nature _must _be more tolerant of magic. And what's more, now you have made a connection with her sister. And that means _you_ can influence the future of our kind, my boy. I have been waiting for decades for such an ideal setup. The trolls _will_ regain our former glory, Kristoff. I see a future where we are _not_ driven to hiding on the outskirts of forests where no human roams."

Maybe Pabbie was expecting Kristoff to feel, he didn't know, patriotic. But something about his words rubbed Kristoff the wrong way.

"So what about adopting me?" he asked, sounding snippier than he'd meant to. "Was that just another part of your 'opportunity'?"

The troll regarded the boy sternly for a moment before answering. "Kristoff, humans are creatures capable of great hatred, and Queen Elsa, I fear, is about to serve as living proof of how quickly they will turn on someone, even one of their own, who is different. If it ever comes down to it, I hope you don't forget where your loyalties lie."

"You have a gift for reassuring answers," Kristoff deadpanned. "Look, I gotta go, but I hope you realize I'm not just dating Anna as part of some scheme to get the trolls ahead. I'm doing it because… well, I think maybe I love her."

Pabbie stayed silent. At first Kristoff was worried he would chew him out, but the troll simply said, "Even better." Then he turned away.

Kristoff was left to trudge through the forest on the back of his reindeer, staring off into space and thinking about how all he really wanted to do was deliver ice, make out with his girlfriend, and not get killed by a monster.

"Man, you're lucky you don't have to worry about this, pal," sighed Kristoff, scratching his mount affectionately. Sven's only reply was a dignified snort. "Reindeers don't have to worry about _anything_." This sentiment inspired Kristoff to reach into his pack to retrieve his trusty lute (Anna had replaced it, too, after using the old one to battle wolves) and sing one of the many, many songs he had composed on the subject:

"_Reindeers are great,_

"_They're the toast of the town,_

"_Life's always better,_

"_When a reindeer's around…_"

* * *

Despite the constant dread he felt in her presence, Fritz was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with Queen Elsa. Apparently, today was her day off from queenly duties, and Fritz was hoping the more relaxed atmosphere would segue into a conversation with her in which Fritz didn't stutter every other word.

Fritz's aspirations for a relationship with Elsa were about to be let down, though (Yeah, you might notice a pattern developing here), because just as the queen was finishing breakfast, who should approach the royal end of the table but the Admiral.

"Pardon, Your Majesty, but could I borrow your new bodyguard for a while?" the man declared in a booming voice. "He's just a kid, and he's been working really hard. I'd like to take him out for a treat."

"But, uh, if I leave the queen, won't that defy the whole point of being her bodyguard?" pointed out Fritz, who had half a mind to hide under the table until the Admiral left. The boy was prone to treat any offer to do something overtly nice for him with suspicion, and besides, Fritz imagined he'd derive more joy from being in the queen's company than that of a large, hairy man.

"No, it's fine, you can go," spoke up the queen, not even bothering to look up from her plate. "I won't be leaving the castle today, so I can make do with the regular guards for a while."

Well, there went Fritz's idle hope that maybe the _queen_ had a crush on _him_, too, and was simply too bashful to admit it. She had definitely placed herself firmly in the "wouldn't even give you the time of day" department.

Fritz decided to decline the Admiral's offer himself. But then he remembered he didn't have a backbone, so instead he ended up letting the man lead him halfway across the city to one of the seedier pubs.

Fritz didn't like this. The bar was filthy and the customers were filthy and the drinks were even filthier and darned if Fritz didn't find himself downing way too many of them anyways! It wasn't his fault he drank too much when he got nervous.

But pretty soon Fritz forgot how scared he was, he forgot how suspicious he ought to be of the Admiral buying him unlimited drinks for no apparent reason, and he even forgot how ashamed Momma would be if she ever found out about this. The only thing Fritz _did _seem to remember was that Elsa was really, really hot and he would never, ever have her.

What Fritz did not realize was that the Admiral was currently seated at the table behind him, which was packed to the brim with thugs and ruffians who gave off a somewhat inhospitable impression.

"There he is!" the Admiral jeered, pointing out Fritz to his companions. "The queen asked for a bodyguard, so I stuck her with the most incompetent dolt I could find!" His friends howled with laughter and exchanged high fives.

"So, uh, that means she's unprotected, right?" said one of the older men. "So then what are we doing loafing around here instead of putting the fear of God into that sorceress harlot?"

"Be patient," came another voice- the only one not amused or gleeful in any way. "The Snow Queen is stronger than she looks. We need to wait for other variables to fall into place."

"Like what, Adrian?"

Instead of answering, the grizzled man stood up and marched across the room towards Fritz.

The boy now had a small crowd gathered, listening intently as he recounted, "Now, I didn't actually _see_ anything, but just between you and me, I think the royal sisters are a little TOO close, if you know what I'm sayin'-"

"You! Boy!" interrupted Adrian, pushing his way through the crowd. "You've been following the queen around for the past two days. Tell me what you've learned about her."

Fritz took the liberty of having another drink before replying, which made his words even more slurred: "_Sheez tha seckziest thang siiiiinse seckzzzz_…"

Suddenly, Adrian grabbed him by the coat collar and held the boy to eye level. There were screams of alarm from members of the crowd, but the few people not in on the rebellion were being threatened into silence by the majority that were, so there was little they could do but watch in fear.

Fritz made a noise that was half-whimper, half-hiccup.

"I know the sorceress is not invincible," spat Adrian. "She has to have a weakness, and you're going to tell me what it is."

"Nooooooo, muh not sposed tuh tell you," answered Fritz, on the verge of incoherence. "She doesn't wanna be seen aaaaaas weak."

"What do you mean?" Adrian's eyes narrowed.

"She wus all screamin' in that night," mumbled Fritz, his eyelids drooping. "'Halp, halp, muh on fire!' That sorta thing. An' she freaked out atta lit match. An' other stuff. I'm… sleepy… now… zzzzz…"

Adrian roughly deposited Fritz back in his chair.

"Hey, Adrian, what was that all about?" called the Admiral from across the room.

"Tomorrow." Adrian's face was stone. "We strike tomorrow."


	10. Your Enemy

"Anna is dead."

This time it was a-

"Queen Elsa! Queen Elsa, wake up!"

"Huh… Wha…?" The girl opened her eyes, disoriented enough that it took her a moment to realize she was lying in bed. The room was pitch black save for a lamp glowing dimly in the corner.

"You were, um, beginning to toss and turn in your sleep, your majesty. I woke you up preemptively, like you asked."

Her bodyguard was hovering over Elsa again- the one whose name had all but faded from her subconscious by now. It was a remarkably similar setup to last night, except… Well, now that she thought about it, Elsa didn't remember her bodyguard ever returning after the Admiral took him into town. She'd ended up going to bed unguarded.

"Where have you been?" the queen asked groggily.

"Um," answered the boy.

It was lucky for Fritz that Elsa was too drowsy to push the issue, because he had a bad feeling that if she ever found out he'd awoken in a shabby bar with no recollection of the last few hours and covered in his own vomit, Fritz would be _so_ fired it wasn't even funny. The boy had ended up spending the rest of the day sprinting towards Arendelle castle. He'd made it back just in time to grab a clean uniform and arrived at the queen's bedroom to find her sound asleep.

Well, sound until her nightmares had started again, anyways.

"Thank you for waking me." Elsa rolled over under her covers, facing away from her guard.

Of course, the elephant in the room here was that her bodyguard had most likely woken Elsa at the first sign of trouble more so because she was liable to start shooting ice, making it an action motivated more by self-preservation than pure philanthropy.

(Another reason unbeknownst to Elsa was that Fritz was worried she'd start screaming in her sleep again, and right now any loud noise gave him a killer headache.)

Elsa closed her eyes and tried to lie still, but it got her nowhere. She had an almost imperceptible uneasiness about her that made rest challenging. "I'm not sure I can get back to sleep," she admitted, more to herself than to her guard.

For a second, it looked like the bodyguard would remain quiet. But then he got out, voice shaking, "If you want, we could, err, we could talk."

Elsa flipped back over to give him a quizzical stare.

"I just mean that, uh, well, you don't want me telling anyone, so you really have no one else to talk to," the boy clarified timidly. "About your nightmares, I mean."

Elsa also took her time before replying. Truth be told, she really didn't want to talk about this right now, especially not with some kid she barely knew. But ignoring him felt too much like "conceal, don't feel," and that left a bad taste in her mouth.

"I'm just… afraid," Elsa admitted.

Her bodyguard almost started to chuckle at this. It was the closest Elsa had ever seen him come to releasing any of that tension he always seemed to have pent-up.

"How can you be scared of _anything_?" the boy asked incredulously. "You're probably the most powerful thing around for miles!"

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Elsa, stifling a yawn. "That I hurt someone because I can't control myself."

Contrary to what she'd said about being unable to sleep, now Elsa's eyelids were growing heavy…

Fritz spent several minutes deciding on the perfect reply. Taking a deep breath, he finally said, "That's incredible. You could probably rule Arendelle with an iron fist if you wanted. All you'd have to do is bust out your powers and make an army of your snow monster things and _bam_- The world is your oyster!

"But you don't. In fact, you don't want to hurt _anyone_ with your power, and you're so worried about it that you let it give you nightmares. How many people do you think would act that way in your shoes?

"You must really care about the people of this kingdom, and, well, I know a lot of people hate you for trapping us in eternal winter, but… I think you make a great queen… No," he corrected himself, "you're more than that…" Here went nothing.

"You're kind and smart and beautiful and… and, well, I've never been able to say this before, but ever since I met you, I've always loved-"

And then Fritz noticed the steady rising and falling of Elsa's chest. She'd been asleep for the past several minutes by the looks of it. Hadn't taken in a word he'd just said.

Sisyphus with the boulder. That's who Fritz was.

* * *

"Elsa! Freeze the chocolate! It tastes even better that way!"

"C'mon, let's ride our bike inside! We won't get in trouble if Anders doesn't catch us!"

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"We're gonna build the biggest snow-fort EVER!"

Anna once again awoke to a flood of restored childhood memories. She yawned, stretched, rolled out of bed, and checked the clock. It was well past three-thirty. That meant that if she wrestled her hair back into shape and threw on some clothes she hadn't just slept in, Anna could look presentable enough not to set off Gerda's radar and still make it to the dining hall a few minutes before they stopped serving lunch.

Life was good. Anna had slept into the afternoon, her sister wasn't locked in her room forever, she had a boyfriend who wasn't secretly plotting to kill her (as far as Anna knew), and the kingdom wasn't even trapped in eternal winter! Everything was perfect.

Well, actually, there _was_ still that whole business with the prophecy and the bad guys coming to kill them, but Anna was fairly certain whenever these villain-types reared their ugly heads, Elsa would just whoop them with her ice powers and then throw their butts in jail. Anna hoped she'd be allowed to punch them first. She'd been aching for another chance to do that.

After her breakfast-which-was-actually-late-lunch, Anna set off through the castle in search of her sister. She eventually found the queen in the study, knelt over the writing desk and scribbling away with an ink pin.

"Never fear, Elsa, your favorite sister is awake!" Anna announced her dramatic entry. "I'm here to save you from whatever boring nonsense you've gotten yourself into so we can go do something fun!"

"Sorry, Anna," Elsa replied, her eyes fixed on her work. "I need to get this done." Anna realized with horror that her sister was working on the same brick of paperwork from before, and the pile had barely gotten any smaller.

"Oh yuck, I just remembered I'm allergic to tedium," the princess said, immediately turning to make her dramatic exit. "Okay then, I'm gonna go do fun stuff all by myself, but before I go, I'd like to remind you that you're the queen and you can do whatever you want, meaning you're wasting hours of your life on boring legal stuff _by choice_."

"I know," Elsa said with a patient smile.

Behind the queen's back, Anna met eyes with Elsa's bodyguard, then pointed to her own temple and spun her index finger around in that universal sign for "this person's craaaaaazy!"

The bodyguard shifted anxiously. It was the same boy from before- the one around Anna's age with the head a little on the misshapen side. Currently, he stood with his back and his standard-issue guard hat and spear all completely rigid and straight. The boy had clearly been infatuated with Anna since the moment he'd first walked into the gallery, the poor, love-struck fool. He always seemed to be blushing and stumbling over his words in her presence, and even now the guard was staring intently at Elsa, probably too shy to look Anna's way.

Of course, Anna had let him down _hard_, and she couldn't deny she'd gotten a perverse thrill out of it.

When it became clear Elsa was steadfast about doing the lame-o paperwork, Anna reluctantly slinked out of the study and wandered aimlessly down the hall, arms folded.

"Great. What am I supposed to do with myself now?" she grumbled.

"Excuse me, Princess Anna?" As if in response to her thoughts, one of the guards suddenly approached Anna. It wasn't one she recognized, though. Must've been part of the upsurge in staff Anders kept going on about. "The Royal Ice Harvester was spotted heading this way on his reindeer. If you get in a carriage now, you could reach him before he nears the gates."

"Finally!" Anna sighed in relief. She'd been growing increasingly impatient waiting for her boyfriend's return. Visiting family was one thing, but what possible appeal could Kristoff find in spending days on end hanging out with a bunch of stinky rock trolls when he had a beautiful princess to attend to?

Well, at any rate, Anna was glad Kristoff was back. For a minute there she'd been worried today was going to be _boring_!

* * *

The sizeable group of rebels was gathered at the roof of the watchtower, torches waiting to be lit. From up here, they had a bird's eye view of the castle exterior. This was normally meant to help guards be on the alert for any danger to the crown, but currently the tower's purpose was being perverted into quite the opposite.

Getting past the gates hadn't been hard, even for an unwieldy team of thugs clearly up to no good. In fact, the guards on patrol had cheerfully led Adrian's men up the tower stairs. Well, except the ones who hadn't been recently hired by the Admiral, but they were outnumbered five-to-one, and most of them were pretty aged, anyways. Hardly even a hindrance to the rebel's schemes.

"What are we doing wasting time up here?" grunted one of the dimmer mutineers. "The sorceress is in the castle, ain't she? Why don't we just barge in and burn her already?"

"Variables," answered Adrian, who was occupied with watching a carriage leave the castle through a pair of binoculars.

"You and your variables," smirked another rebel. "You'd think this was a math test and not a revolution."

"Ha! Nice one!" He and a friend exchanged high fives.

"Thanks! Y'know, I may be a hairy brute, but I have a dream that one day I'll be an algebra professor at-"

"Quiet," cut off Adrian, lowering the eyepiece. "I just spotted the queen entering the courtyard. Storm the castle and follow the Admiral's lead. He knows the way best. And make as much fire as you can before you reach her."

A cheer rang out through the mob. Innumerable bodies began pouring down the staircase, igniting torches as they went. Soon the tower was emptied, leaving only the tied-up hostages (staff too loyal to the queen) and Adrian, who hadn't moved.

The Admiral lingered at the head of the stairs to glare at him. "You coming?"

The old man shook his head. "I have something else that needs to be taken care of. Go without me."

The Admiral snorted. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet _now_? You're the one who started this whole uprising in the first place!"

"I know what I'm doing," said Adrian, his voice level.

"And what if I think you're trying to weasel your way out of this because you think we'll fail?" growled the man across from him. "You promised us the fire would intimidate the Snow Queen enough for us to overcome her magic."

"If you succeed, you can take all the credit, Admiral. Tell the men I was a coward and you killed me for backing down."

"And if we fail?"

Adrian closed his eyes. "The Snow Queen won't kill you. She fancies herself above such brutality. If she captures and interrogates you, tell her _this_…"

The Admiral liked what he was supposed to tell her. As soon as he heard the words, he erupted with laughter. "Looks like you _do_ have balls after all," he said, slapping Adrian on the back. "Nice to know we've got some insurance now." And with that, he descended the staircase to join up with the rest of the mob.

Adrian lingered behind a while longer. He fingered the scabbard on his belt, which housed the violet sword. He could have joined the rebels in storming the castle. Could have caught her off guard with the enchanted blade and slain her like the monster she was.

But that wasn't what Adrian wanted.

* * *

Elsa told herself she was concentrating on sifting through the swamp of legal documents before her, but truth be told she was letting her mind wander (which was a _real_ shock because the paperwork was usually so gripping). This wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the queen's mind hadn't happened to be wandering towards prophecies and monsters and fire and all the other things she didn't want to think about.

The image of Anders flashed through the queen's head. _Coward_! he taunted. _Can't even take a warm bath! Almost froze your sister again because of an itty bitty match_!

Elsa dropped her pen into the inkwell and brought her hands to her forehead.

_That's why you can only make ice and not water, you big idiot_! chimed in imaginary-Anna. _Every time you let yourself get_ _warm, you flip out and kill me again_!

Elsa abruptly rose to her feet. "I'm going outside," she declared.

"Are you sure?" asked her bodyguard, wincing at her sudden movement (Fritz had been staring at Elsa in a similar fashion to how Elsa had been studying every detail of her paperwork). "It's scorching hot out there-"

"_I know_."

The guard-whose-name-escaped-Elsa hadn't been wrong. As soon as she stepped into the courtyard, Elsa could feel the sun beating down on her exposed skin. It wasn't as painful as the hot chocolate or the bathwater, but the heat still caused an annoying prickle on the back of her neck.

_You can do this._

Elsa took a deep breath and seated herself on a nearby bench. The sun had heated the stone to the point that it burned her rear, which was nearly enough to make Elsa cry out in pain. But she'd anticipated the heat this time and managed to remain still, though she could feel her ice begging to be released.

_You can do this. You can do this._

Elsa's every impulse was telling her to shoot some ice, drop the air temperature, _something_ to cool down, but she forced herself to hold back. Instead, Elsa urged her magic to do the opposite; she diminished the radius of cold around herself, making the air as warm as she could (though she had the foresight to ensure her ice-dress remained cold. This would go down in history as one of the biggest letdowns in Fritz's entire life).

"Your majesty, perhaps you ought to go back inside," squeaked out her bodyguard, who judging by his facial expression seemed to think Elsa was having some sort of seizure. "You, uh, strike me as the type who burns easily in the sun." His eyes flitted towards the queen's pale skin.

"In a minute!" Elsa answered through gritted teeth. She extended her palm and summoned an ice crystal within it. Then, just as before, she gradually morphed it into snow. Elsa concentrated on the snow in her hand for a while, but it stubbornly refused to become water. "Gah! I give up!"

The queen angrily hurled the slush to the ground, where the sun-baked brick did a much better job melting it than she ever could.

"Alright, alright, I'm going back in," conceded Elsa, returning her hands to her forehead. "This sunlight's giving me a horrible headache-"

_Sploosh_!

With no prior warning, a snowball collided with Elsa's face.

"Sorry! I think that was my kidney!" called out a familiar voice.

Elsa blinked in surprise and turned to find a group of children, none older than ten, across the courtyard from her. There was nothing surprising about that; various youngsters had taken to playing in the courtyard ever since the permanent opening of the castle gates. What _was_ surprising was the fact that this band of kids was crowded around an overturned Olaf, his middle segment spilled out over the pavement and no longer holding its round shape.

Every last child was staring at Elsa, wide-eyed and quivering with fear.

"Did you just… _throw a snowball_ at your queen?" The queen moved towards the group, and the poor children looked like they would've run for their lives if they weren't so petrified.

One of the braver kids- a spiky-haired blond boy of around six- quickly got out, "What no it was an accident I was aiming for that skinny guy next to you PLEASE DON'T KILL US!"

"Well, I hope you weren't trying to start a snowball fight." A wide, thin smile appeared on the queen's face. "Because the queen _always_ _wins _snowball fights." At her words, Elsa raised her arms aloft and crafted a snowball the size of a small boulder. This was enough to un-petrify a handful of children and send them heading for the hills.

Elsa dropped the snowboulder, chuckling. Her laughter seemed to get the remaining kids to ease up. "What are you doing with my snowman?"

"They're giving me a lobotomy!" said Olaf happily.

"We're playing doctor," clarified the blond boy's companion, a tiny brunette girl who looked like she'd rather be doing anything than performing surgery on a snowman.

"Well, let's try to keep Olaf in one piece, shall we?" With a wave of her hand, Elsa sent out a gust of cold wind that returned all the scattered Olaf-insides to their proper shape. It even blew Olaf's personal flurry back into place- One of the children had been poking it with a stick (Olaf's stolen arm), and the snow cloud had apparently gotten annoyed and wandered off from its owner.

"Phew! Thanks a ton, Elsa!" Olaf sighed in relied. "That feels _way_ better!"

Just then, Elsa felt a tug at her cape. The culprit was another boy, this one around four.

"Hello there," smiled Elsa.

"I heawd you fweeze evewything you touch," said the child. He didn't sound scared- just curious.

"That's not true. See?" The girl knelt down to gently brush her hand against the child's cheek (Fritz regarded the boy with something resembling envy). "I _used_ to freeze everything I touched, but I don't anymore."

"Oh." The child furrowed his brow. "But then when you _used _to fweeze evewything you touched, how did you use the bathwoom?"

"Hey, look over there!" Elsa suddenly said. "I think Olaf wants to play with you!" When the child's back was turned, she hastily moved to another region of the courtyard.

Elsa spent the next several minutes fending off the horde of curious children ("No, I'm not making the courtyard a skating rink again. Maybe some other time…"), but she didn't mind. In fact, she was just beginning to forget what she'd been so upset about when a dark voice from behind her said, "Having fun, your majesty?"

Elsa jerked in surprise and spun around to face her accuser. A look of shock crossed her face. It was… Anders!

The queen's face hardened. "Anders," she said curtly. "What are you doing here?"

"Somehow, despite my best efforts, I continue to find myself accompanying your snowman on his misadventures," shrugged the old butler. "And I do believe I could ask the same question of you. I'd have thought it too warm out for your liking."

The queen jolted slightly at his words. It _was_ still warm out, wasn't it?

"Of course, it didn't seem to bother you as much once you started playing with those youngsters, now did it?" continued Anders absently. "Queen Elsa, have I ever told you about one of my older friends? He's dead now, but he used to walk with a pronounced limp. Only his leg was fine. Psychosomatic injury."

Elsa let out a sigh and shut her eyes tightly. That prickling on her neck was back. "Anders, in the future, if I want your advice, I will ask for it."

"I'll wait with bated brea-" But the butler's next smart remark was cut short. "Is that smoke?"

Elsa was going to turn to see what Anders was staring at, but she never got the chance. The next instant the entrance gates were smashed open and the courtyard was filled with countless men, all of them large, musclebound, and angry.

But Elsa didn't see them. All she saw was the fire.

"We've come with a message, Snow Queen!" roared the man at the head of the mob, raising his torch high. Elsa ought to have recognized him as the Admiral, but right now her mind felt like a pit of quicksand. "Arendelle will NOT bow TO A SORCERESS!"

The mob waited a moment to let the words sink in, which at the very least gave Anders time to herd screaming children and a snowman out the back exit.

"ELSA!" Her bodyguard immediately placed himself between the girl and the mob. Didn't even hesitate, though his spear trembled in his hands. But all it earned the boy was a quick jab to the face that sent him to the floor. He crumpled like he was made of paper.

"Your majesty, far be it from me to tell the queen what to do," said Anders as the last child fled the courtyard, "but now may be an appropriate time to use your powers." Always the snarker, even in the face of mortal peril.

But Elsa didn't hear him. She didn't even quite register that there was an angry mob in front of her. The only sight in Elsa's eyes was a tremendous wall of fire, and when it charged at her she turned and _ran_.


	11. But If It Had to Perish Twice

"Wakey, wakey, angel…"

A young woman opened her eyes to find her entire line of sight filled by a human skull with a thin layer of skin stretched over it. Of course, she immediately tried to scream, but her voice came out muffled. Something was covering her mouth- Something cold and moist. Whatever it was, it was on her limbs and neck too, locking them tightly in place. She couldn't as much as turn her head.

"Remember me? I hope you do, 'cause I know I remembered you…"

In the dimness, the silhouette before her resembled a skeleton, only with greasy hair spilling out from the tip of its scalp. She wanted to say it was human, but it was hard to tell for sure in the poor lighting. The only light source came from a circular opening in the wall a few feet away. Was this a cave?

Didn't matter, she told herself. Focus on breathing through your nose. Focus on- Oh, God, what was _happening_?!

"C'mon, I'm the guy from the bar!" chuckled the _thing_, brushing its bony black hand against her face. A shiver ran down the girl's spine. "I ordered the extra ice. You can call me the Wight. Or at least, you could if you actually had a chance to talk at any point before I kill you. Oh well."

The waitress _did_ vaguely remember that raspy voice, but right now her mind was feeling too disorderly to recall anything properly. Instead, she focused on flicking her eyes around the cave.

She saw hay- Why on earth were there pieces of hay lining the ground?- and, even odder, what appeared to be a picture frame propped up against the side of the cave. It contained a portrait of a beautiful young girl.

"Oh, you like that?" The Wight turned his hollowed-out eyes towards the picture. "My last victim was a painter. I think the palace paid him to do portraits of all the royal family. It's great art, but this picture here is of my worst enemy. That's why I killed the guy. Couldn't stand seeing him paint such an amazing portrait of my worst enemy, now could I?"

The skeletal man smiled, his lips stretched thin, as if he were recalling a fond memory.

"Of course, she won't be a problem much longer. It's already started. You can see the smoke from outside my cave here." He gestured lazily in the direction of the opening.

The waitress wasn't listening. She was too busy staring at another, more noticeable, feature of the cave: skeletons. Countless skeletons littering the floor. Some were human, some were animal, some weren't even complete, just piles of scattered bones.

"But of course, you must be wondering why this time I chose _you_," croaked the Wight.

Pure white bones.

"Well, if you must know, it's because I find you a little on the chubby side."

Pure white bones covered in teeth marks.

"Just the way I like 'em."

The girl struggled as hard as she could against her restraints, but they refused to budge.

* * *

The mob stood motionless in the courtyard, torches burning wastefully. To be honest, they'd been expecting at least a _little_ resistance from the legendary Snow Queen. Most of them had heard about Prince Hans's raid on the Ice Palace, and they were feeling a bit let down by the hype.

The men turned to the Admiral for instruction.

"Looks like we found her Achilles' heel," grinned the Admiral. He held his own blazing torch aloft and bellowed, "AFTER HER, MEN! AFTER THE MONSTER THAT TRAPPED US IN ETERNAL WINTER!"

There was a frenzied roar from the crowd:

"Kill the beast! Kill the beast!"

"Yeah! AND she raised TAXES!"

"Have you heard what they say she's been doing with her sister? LET'S BURN THE FLOOZY!"

And with that, the flood of bodies tore after the queen's trail.

* * *

The children, snowman, and butler ended up huddled in the castle dungeon, safe behind its large, iron doors. The prison where Hans had trapped the queen only a week ago now acted in the reverse role, becoming a safe haven untouched thus far by the rebellion. And, as it was made of cold stone, the room was also protected from the inferno rapidly spreading across the upper levels of the castle.

The inferno. Anders let out a soft moan at the memory. He had seen it while guiding the little ones down here- an endless sea of fire spilling over carpets, wallpaper, and anything else flammable. Most of that stuff had been there since Anders was a boy, and just the thought of losing it-

What was wrong with him? There were _people_ in there! The staff had to have been caught completely off guard by the rioters. Anders thanked God the children hadn't passed any on their way down. Kids shouldn't have to see that sort of thing. The flames alone had been enough to send them into hysterics. Anders could hardly bring himself to look at their horrified little faces.

And the snowman, of course, was running his mouth incessantly. It figured that in the midst of everything, fate would _still_ conspire to trap Anders with that intolerable-

But then Anders caught the words Olaf was saying: "Shh, hey, it's alright, guys. We are, like, _really_ safe down here." He was the only one- the _only one_- keeping a level head, and not only that, but the snowman was trying his hardest to calm the children down, too, dishing out soothing words and warm hugs at a rapid rate.

Anders's chest clenched. What was _wrong_ with him? That snowman was being a savior to kids who thought the world was ending, and all Anders was doing was sitting in the corner being a bitter old man!

"But they're gonna kill the queen!" one of the older children choked out between sobs.

"Ha! No way!" beamed Olaf. "Elsa's WAY tougher than them! This one time, she threw me and my buddies off a mountain by making this ginormous snow monster!"

"Wow! She can make _snow monsters_?!"

"Sure can! In fact, I'm actually part snow monster myself."

Anders's eyelids clamped down tightly. He felt like Olaf had stepped out of a whole different world- one where young children never had to flee angry mobs or escape burning buildings, and little girls didn't have to see their parents sail away and never come back home.

_Anders, there was a storm at sea, it's been weeks, they should've been back by now_. He'd been reading a novel in his favorite armchair. A completely ordinary night. He'd never forget that. _What do we tell the girls? _Kai asked the inside of Anders's head for about the five billionth time in the last three years.

Olaf's words had gone a long way towards calming the children, but at least one suddenly resumed bawling loudly.

"Hey, it's okay, I've got you," cooed the snowman, wrapping the little girl in his stick arms. "There's nothing to cry about."

"Buh-Buh-But-" The toddler pointed a shaking arm towards the corner of the room. "Even the grown-up is crying!"

Anders quickly turned his head away. How could he have let them see-? So selfish. He was so selfish. All the old butler wanted to do was forget any of this was happening, but a second later he was yanked back into reality by a gentle tug on his pants leg.

"Hey, Anders, you okay?" Olaf's oversized snow-front-tooth jutted out from beneath a frown.

"_No_, I'm not _okay_!" the old man snapped, covering his eyes with a hand. "Elsa's not going to save us! She's terrified of fire! I saw her run away screaming!"

A wave of shock and defeat washed over every child in the dungeon. But not Olaf.

"I bet it's part of her cunning trick!" he immediately decided. "She's waiting until she catches them off guard and then BAM! Giant snow monster!" Most of the youngsters seemed to buy this and calmed back down.

Anders found his face contorting against his will. "It's all my fault," he choked out. "I was too hard on her. I knew Elsa was afraid of heat, but instead of trying to comfort her… all I did was cut her down! How could I be so _horrible_?!"

A stick poked his thigh. It was Olaf trying to pat Anders on the back (but being unable to reach quite that high).

"You're not horrible," the snowman said, matter-of-fact. "You're a great guy! In fact, you're my new best friend… remember?"

"How can you say that?" wept the butler, his shoulders heaving. "I've been the _most_ horrible to _you_!"

"I know, but I don't mind," smiled Olaf. "I can tell you're a really good person. You just have a funny way of showing it sometimes."

It was at this that Anders really lost it. He fell to his knees and sobbed like he hadn't sobbed in three years.

"What's wrong?" asked a concerned snowman.

"_I cuh-cah-can't do it again_!" wailed Anders. "_I cuh-cah-can't bury another one_!"

Olaf happened to be a snowman of very little brain, meaning when confronted with an unfamiliar situation, he defaulted to his old standby:

"Y'know what you need? A warm HUG!"

"Yes," sniffed Anders. "I would like one."

* * *

During "the dark years" spent apart from her sister, the castle hallways had served as a constant comfort to Elsa. They were reminders of times long past- of sliding down stair railings, mimicking the poses of the people in the paintings, skidding across the wood floor in stockings… Comfortable. Familiar.

But now it was all dyed an alien, orange hue.

Elsa tore through the corridors, but no matter how quickly she went, she couldn't escape _the fire_. The girl felt like an observer in her own head, and no matter how desperately she tried, she couldn't seem to organize her thoughts. All she could think about were those tongues of flame, the smoke in her nostrils, that constant heat on her face- How could she have ever thought the _sunshine_ was hot just a few minutes ago?

Wait, minutes? No, it had to have been hours…

Elsa felt dizzy. Her surroundings were so charred and black that she couldn't even tell where she was anymore. Doing her best to tune out that constant crackling noise, Elsa darted her eyes around. Had to see where she was, had to find a landmark…

The paintings! She must have been in the gallery, then, though the portraits were barely recognizable at this point. The ones not still blazing were mere ash by now. And all Elsa could think was, _Anna loved those!_

No. She had to stop thinking about Anna. It hurt too much. _Everything _hurt too much.

And then Elsa saw them. Eyes, staring right at her. It was from the one portrait miraculously untouched by the flames: Joan of Arc, giving Elsa a stern glare from the back of her horse. She looked disappointed.

Elsa fled the room.

She didn't even know where she was going- ignore the crackling noise, ignore the sound of yelling men from the other room- and Elsa hardly even noticed as her legs took her up a flight of stairs (which, by the way, you should never, ever do in the event of a fire, not that any of the fire safety rules drilled into Elsa as a girl were sticking with her even a little bit right now).

Her feet ached from running in heels. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Elsa impulsively dashed for the first door her feet brought her to at the top of the stairs, flung herself inside, and locked it behind her.

No fire in here. Not even taking in her surroundings, Elsa let herself fall to the hardwood floor and curled into a fetal position. The crackling was gone, but it was replaced with a horrible, continual gasping noise. It took Elsa a second to realize it was coming from _her_.

Focus on breathing. Even before sucking in all that smoke, Elsa had been dimly conscious of the fact that she was breathing _all wrong_- a rapid contortion of her chest that caused her to inhale and exhale far too much air at once.

So stupid. Now she could finally control her ice, but she couldn't even control her own lungs? Elsa waited for her breathing to slow. It never did.

_Don't just lie there! _scolded a tiny, distant voice in Elsa's head. _Move! _But Elsa was having trouble getting her legs to work. So now she couldn't even run away again! And, oh, how badly she wanted to run away again! Elsa wanted to bolt across the harbor, her footfalls freezing water as they landed. Wanted to get far away from the castle and the people and the fire.

But most of all she wanted to go back to her Ice Palace. She missed it.

_Coward,_ she told herself. _You _still_ want to run away. Nothing's changed! You're the same nine-year-old girl who nearly killed Anna! The same girl who ran away from her coronation! Coward! Coward coward coward coward coward. _

Elsa forced herself to stop thinking. To take her mind off it, the girl looked for the first time at her surroundings. The room was barren, containing nothing but wallpaper. Not even any furniture.

Oh. Elsa knew where she was now. Her old bedroom. Old habits die hard.

_You're still not breathing right._

The place was visually almost unrecognizable- As a child, Elsa had been reduced to memorizing ever minute detail of this room, making the change particularly glaring. She'd ended up hating it so much that she'd ordered her new bedroom to have entirely new furniture. But somehow, the room still _felt_ exactly the same. Years of uncontrolled ice-creation had left it with a permanent chill in its air, despite the fire raging just outside the door.

Elsa hadn't been in this room since coronation day. Heck, she'd had half a mind to have the whole thing bricked in and a wall erected over the doorframe. And now she was back. Somehow, wildly, Elsa found this even more upsetting than the fire.

And yet she _could not _bring herself out of the fetal position.

_Still not breathing right. _

Elsa felt like she'd been lying on the ground forever. But time caught up with her when the inevitable sound of a thousand footsteps climbing the stairs reached her ears. This was followed by the sound of one of the doors across the hallway being kicked open.

"Not in her bedroom," came a loud, clear voice (the Admiral's). "Come out, come out, sorceress! We know you're up here!"

"You sure?" asked a different voice. "Maybe she went down to the dungeons? I think I saw a buncha kids go down there."

_You're breathing too loud! They'll hear you! YOU'RE BREATHING TOO LOUD!_

"What, you want us to go light the kids on fire? We're not monsters!"

"Yeah, but that _thing _is down there, too. The little snow freak she made."

"Good point. It's sorcerous, too. Needs to be burned."

"Heh. Bet it'll be fun to watch it squirm."

_It's okay, _Elsa told herself. _You can refreeze him. Or at least build another one. _She couldn't believe she'd just thought that. _Coward. _

_Your heartbeat's too loud! __They'll hear it!_

She wasn't supposed to be a coward. She'd been trying to be _brave _just a short while ago, hadn't she? But now… she just couldn't.

_I don't think I was being brave or anything. _All of a sudden, words were flashing though Elsa's head._ I just didn't want _you_ to get hurt… more than I didn't want _me_ to get hurt._

It was good advice. It made her smile just the tiniest bit. But… maybe it was the chaos of the moment, but Elsa couldn't for the life of her remember who had said it.

Must've been Anna. It sounded like something Anna would say.

Elsa was broken out of her thoughts when the voices spoke again:

"Let's check the princess's room."

"Wait, what if the princess is in there? What do we do with her?"

"What do you think, you idiot? She's the queen's sister! She's probably a sorceress, too!" And then louder, to address the whole mob: "Y'HEAR THAT? IF WE FIND THE PRINCESS, WE BURN _HER_, TOO!"

* * *

The very instant the word "TOO" was out of his mouth, the Admiral's torch went out. Every eye in the mob fell on the smoking black stub in his hand.

The thug to the Admiral's immediate left was the first to figure out what was going on. "Oh sh-" He was interrupted by his own torch extinguishing. Then a third torch did likewise. Then a fourth one.

Then, a wave of cold wind swept across the entire room. In fact, it didn't stop there. The entire castle was rocked by the powerful draft. Like the first few gusts before a hurricane.

Every bit of fire in Arendelle castle was extinguished all at once.

An absolute hush fell over the crowd. The quiet was broken by the distinct sound, directly behind them, of a high heel stomping against the ground.


	12. Stronger Than One, Stronger Than Ten

**_Author's Note:_ Sorry I had to break my string of daily updates, guys, but there's this horrible thing called "school" I got dragged to. Anyways, reviews are, as always, greatly appreciated, and please enjoy this new chapter in which Elsa unleashes peaceful diplomacy on the rebels.**

* * *

On one end of the bedchamber hallway, a mob of dozens of hulking, muscular men. On the other, a waifish young girl.

The mob collectively took a few steps back.

"You came into my home." The queen's voice was not timid or angry. It was tranquil. "And set it on fire. In front of children." She held out a steady arm. "You have _one chance_ to surrender."

A second ago, the rioters had been armed with flaming torches. Now they were armed with useless, black, smoking hunks of wood. There was a clatter of numerous hunks falling to the ground.

Elsa allowed herself a small smile. But then the moment was ruined by the Admiral drawing his sword and bellowing, "SHE CAN'T TAKE US ALL!"

The horde opted to bull-rush the queen. Honestly, she'd been kind of hoping they'd do that.

When Hans's men had stormed her Ice Palace, Elsa had been caught off guard. She'd been sloppy and wet-behind-the-ears with her powers, and it had nearly gotten her killed. And so, while she detested violence, after that day Elsa had often found herself planning out what she would do differently if ever faced with that situation again.

Meaning the instant the rebels charged, she readily sent them off their feet. After all, charging at full force is a pretty bad idea when the floor can turn into ice at a moment's notice. With a quick swish of her arms, Elsa trapped as many fallen men as she could under blankets of ice, pinning them by their limbs and torsos.

This evened up the odds quite a bit, but there was still a sizeable handful of thugs who'd escaped her opening volley. They skidded across the ice, and some even made it close enough to swing at Elsa, but they failed just short of actually reaching her, instead tipping over from their forward momentum and landing on their faces. This was possibly because Elsa had frozen their feet to the floor.

Now that natural selection had done its thing, the queen was staring down only the most skilled fighters. About three of them immediately threw punches her way, but Elsa raised a barrier of ice around herself at the last minute and her attackers were left cursing and clutching their broken knuckles.

The remaining brawlers backed away slowly. Erring on the side of caution, were they? Elsa responded to this by dropping the ice-barrier, blinking jauntily, and letting out a girlish giggle. This was enough to make them throw caution to the wind.

"Die, you two-piece harlot!"

"Stupid strumpet!"

(By the way, in the original native language of Arendelle, which I have painstakingly translated this story from, the rebels were using words considered highly vulgar by the standards of the time, but I've done the classy thing here and spared you the obscenities. You're welcome.)

For these last few enemies, Elsa decided to go the more direct route. She hurled a snowball into the eyes of the one nearest her, blinding and distracting him long enough for her to deliver a large, blunt icicle into his gut, sending the poor man flying into the back wall. For the next one, Elsa summoned a hail cloud over his head with precipitation large enough to make for a nasty concussion. And for the one after that, Elsa went the most direct route of all and simply trapped him in a cage of icicles. The man looked extremely annoyed and even slightly disappointed at this.

There was one other rebel who had evaded defeat thus far by slipping away during the chaos. He tried to sneak up on Elsa from behind, but she sent a fist-shaped hunk of ice into his face without so much as turning around.

Now the only man standing was the Admiral. Despite the words of encouragement he'd given his men, the Admiral himself had actually hung back from the conflict by the staircase, not even attempting to make a move against the Snow Queen. This was probably wise, as Elsa _had_ just singlehandedly defeated every other rebel without even leaving the spot she was standing on.

"What was that you were saying?" Elsa quipped.

When the tremendous wall of ice charged at the Admiral, he turned and _ran_.

While there was no longer any fire lining the charred, black castle hallways, there was still a thick cloud of smoke. This allowed the Admiral to put some distance between himself and the pursuing queen, especially when coupled with the high heels on her feet- Oh dear GOD why was she still WEARING those? Elsa furiously kicked the footwear off so she could sprint barefoot. Though the wood floor was still scorching hot, the girl's footfalls managed to cool it with each step.

Unlike when Elsa had fled, the Admiral seemed to know exactly where he was going. He took sharp twists and sudden turns through countless doorways without hesitation. Elsa tried to hurl some bolts of ice at him, but he was too nimble and she was too out-of-breath, making it impossible to aim.

The chase took the pair back outside to the courtyard. The Admiral made a dash for the large entrance gates, but instead of going through them, the man suddenly halted and turned around to flash the queen a smirk.

Elsa hesitated at the center of the yard. That smirk _couldn't_ be good news. Sure enough, a second later a swarm of arrows was raining down on her from the sky. Elsa let out a small yelp and impulsively threw up an ice wall, trapping all the arrows mid-flight. One of them was millimeters from the tip of her nose.

Hmm, that was a bit closer than the last time a crossbow had fired at her. She must've been losing her touch.

Another volley of arrows was quickly launched, but all failed to penetrate the ice wall. Elsa's eyes followed their flight backwards to locate the archers- She could faintly make out a handful of men atop the watchtower, crossbows aimed at the queen's position, adorned in the emerald uniforms of the royal guard.

Well, _they _were fired.

Elsa tried to shoot some ice at the tower, but it was too far away. Of course, the range of Elsa's powers was at least the size of Arendelle, but that didn't automatically make her great at aiming at something she couldn't see. Not only were the archers just barely on the border of her field of vision, but since she was seeing them through the translucent shield of ice around herself, they were distorted, too.

She ended up sending out ice at the top of the tower blindly, which managed to hit exactly zero rebellious guards. Elsa supposed she could just blanket the whole watchtower in ice indiscriminately, but she didn't want to risk killing anyone if it could be avoided (not that her enemies reserved the same formality for her). Besides, what if there were innocent people up there?

Elsa closed her eyes and sighed. Come on, now, she told herself, you have limitless ice powers. You can take a few bows-and-arrows. You can do _anything_- you just have to get creative enough. What would Anna do?

The stern glare of Joan of Arc flashed through Elsa's mind.

* * *

The guards at the head of the watchtower kept their crossbows fixed at the wall of ice shielding their target. They trained their eyes on the courtyard below, waiting for another window to fire.

The majority of these "guards" were in actuality rebels placed on the squad by the Admiral. The only "real" guards were bound by ropes and chains and left discarded on the floor. Their numbers were few, and the ones not unconscious were simply gagged, both to prevent them from crying for help and to quell the incessant stream of arbitrary phrases like, "You won't get away with this!"

But other than beating up staff loyal to the crown, the rebel-guards hadn't been expecting to see much action. The Admiral had regulated them to guard duty, which, while necessary, was hard to feel enthusiastic about when all your friends were getting to light stuff on fire.

Shooting crossbows at the queen had been a backup plan in case the whole "fire" thing went south, and it had been acted upon quite promptly due to both the guards' prior case of severe boredom and the belief that the queen wouldn't be able to fight back from such a distance. This belief had been seemingly reaffirmed when the queen sent a wave of ice at the tower… and missed her attackers by several feet.

Two of the men traded glances and then burst out laughing.

"_This_ is the legendary Snow Queen?"

"Ooh, look out, she might freeze something in your general vicinity!"

"What a let-down," scoffed another one. "Here I was expecting a challenge. We've got her like a trapped rat! All we gotta do now is wait for her to come out of hiding behind that ice! Man, I can't believe _this_ is the sorceress everyone's making such a big deal abou-"

"Wait, look, she's lowering her ice-wall!" a guard suddenly gasped.

The rebels eagerly released their crossbow bolts into the queen, but not a single one reached its target. You see, Elsa had dropped her barrier so that she could charge straight towards the watchtower. This boldness was possible because the queen's ice-dress had been morphed into a new, unfamiliar form; Elsa was now decked out in a complete set of chainmail armor, medieval knight-style.

Even the arrows that didn't bounce off harmlessly were merely embedded in the thick ice-armor, a safe distance from Elsa's skin.

"Very clever," snarled the rebel, "but she still can't possibly reach us up here-"

As he spoke, Elsa shot her magic towards her own feet. This sent her ascending skywards on a pillar of ice rivaling the watchtower in height. And from the top of this ice-tower, Elsa's view of the archers was _perfectly clear_.

The rebels each made a noise strikingly similar to a frightened four-year-old girl.

* * *

Most of the bedchambers hallway was now filled with ice, and most of the ice was now filled with trapped rebels. The ones who weren't unconscious struggled wordlessly against their restraints. No good.

There was a long silence.

"…Maybe this was a bad idea," said the man in the icicle-cage.

"Shut up, Greg. Just shut up."

* * *

The instant the Admiral saw the ice-tower and realized his archers wouldn't be protecting him quite as well in a few seconds, he bolted for the gates. Unfortunately for him, that "few seconds" part was literal. He barely covered a couple of feet before the ice-tower vanished and the queen surfed back down towards the courtyard on a stream of constantly-generated ice.

A sky-blue knight landed between the Admiral and the gate.

The Admiral immediately dropped his sword and put his hands in the air. "I surrender!"

The ice-knight stood still, back perfectly straight. Her helmet dissolved away, revealing the pale face of a silvery-haired girl. Her eyes were bloodshot.

"When I said you only had one chance, I _wasn't kidding_."

A massive tidal wave of frost quickly overtook the Admiral, trapping his entire body from the neck down in a jagged glacier.

And that was the end of the rebellion.

The Admiral impulsively tried to squirm, but it was useless. The queen leisurely strolled closer to look him in the eyes. "I take it you're behind this?" she asked, her voice even. "Giving all the new staff positions to your band of rebels so the mob could slip past the castle's defenses? Makes sense. But why? You've been working here since I was a little girl."

"Oh? And you think I enjoyed it, do you?" snarled the man. Despite his predicament, he stared the queen right in the eye, unflinching. "Spending years of my life watching your lowlife parents frantically struggle to pacify you? Unable to tell anyone about you under penalty of treason, not that anyone would've believed me? Seeing _you_ be groomed for the throne, you _disgusting unbaptized changeling_? The crown wasn't meant for _your kind_!

"Know why you've got that curse?" A sneer crossed the Admiral's face. "Your parents had you out of wedlock. God was punishing them! When I heard what happened to 'em on their little cruise, I laughed for _days_! Couldn't have happened to better people!"

The queen's expression remained stoic.

"I woulda acted sooner, but as your condition wasn't exactly public knowledge, I had trouble rallying enough people to the cause. But then you took care of that problem for me coronation night, didn't you?" The Admiral chuckled.

"You don't belong here. Go back to your room, _freak_." He spat as hard as he could.

Elsa slowly wiped her cheek.

"Well," she said mildly, "I hope that was worth the treason charge."

* * *

When they heard approaching footsteps, the children and snowman immediately huddled behind Anders. The dungeon door swung open to reveal a _stunning_ sight: …an overweight man on the other side of middle-aged.

"Thank goodness you're alright!" Kai sighed in relief. "We're all safe now. It would appear our queen, err, singlehandedly quashed the rebellion."

Cheers of amazement and joy rang out from the gathered children.

"_Cunning trick_!" whispered Olaf, nodding his head in approval.

The young ones were sent home with some very interesting stories to tell their alarmed parents, while Olaf and Anders went straight to the courtyard to see Elsa. Several staff members were out and about by now- It was pretty obvious which ones were still loyal to the queen since they were the ones who'd been taken hostage and hadn't, y'know, just tried to light her on fire.

"ELSA!" The instant he laid eyes on her, Anders charged towards the girl at speeds old men seldom travel and trapped her in a tight hug. "I'm sorry!" he sobbed. "I am so, _so_ sorry! Can you _ever_ forgive a stupid old man for being cruel?" He was so overcome with emotion that he even forgot to scoff at the unladylike suit of armor the queen still had on.

"Anders-?" the queen got out, shocked. Was this elderly man crying like a baby the same sarcastic butler she knew and loved?

"I should NEVER have said what I said to you! I had no right, no right-"

"Anders, no, I…" Elsa took a deep breath. The image of fire and shallow breathing flashed through her head. "I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. You were trying to help me in your own way, and I was too stubborn and prideful to hear it."

"But," whimpered the butler, "all I did was hurt you-"

"That's not true," cut in Elsa. "I… I realize now that because my rise to the throne was… premature, I've lacked people in my life to turn to for guidance. And so it's too seldom I'm told truths I don't want to hear.

"But your words made me realize something important about myself. I never wanted to hurt my loved ones by using my powers, but now I see that I _also_ don't want to hurt my loved ones by _not _using my powers. I can't continue to run and hide from my trials."

The butler closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

"Anders, today I saw too clearly what certain citizens think of me, and… your concern for my well-being means a lot. I'm proud to have you as my… my butler." The girl returned the hug.

"Yay! Hugs!" And Olaf joined in, too, just for good measure.

It was at this point that Kai entered the courtyard carrying some hurried writing. "Your majesty," he greeted, giving the queen a quick bow. "All staff members are present and accounted for. Although the castle took some minor structural damage from the blaze, there are _no _reported casualties." He looked up from the parchment to beam at her. "You saved all of our lives."

Elsa ended the hug and returned her servant's smile.

"Even injury seems at a minimum," continued Kai. "Damage from smoke inhalation was miraculously negligible."

(As an aside, I should point out that smoke inhalation is actually the leading cause of death in house fires. Fortunately for the residents of Arendelle castle, Elsa's magic wave that put out the fire also magically healed everyone's throats. Her powers can totally do that. Healing fire-related injuries is covered in her ice motif. Pretty convenient, really, because otherwise everyone caught in the blaze would be dropping like fruit flies.)

"In fact, I don't think there's a single serious injury at all-" Kai glanced back down at his report. "Whoops, my mistake. There was exactly _one_ serious injury; your bodyguard took a nasty blow to the head. He's in the infirmary right now."

"Yes, yes," Elsa said dismissively, "but what about Anna? Is she safe?"

"Erm…" The servant traded a glance with the butler, who traded it over to the snowman. All three shrugged. "I'm afraid I haven't seen her today."

Elsa's gut twisted itself into a knot.

But then a voice called out, "Oh, oh, I saw the princess!" It was Gerda the maid, standing a couple feet away from them. "She said she was going to visit the Royal Ice Harvester. I saw her leave in a carriage a few minutes before the attack started. She probably missed out on the whole thing, the lucky dear."

Elsa let out the _biggest_ sigh of relief of her entire life. "Oh, thank God!"

But the relief was undercut by the sound of cold laughter. Elsa glided across the courtyard to resume glaring at the still-frozen Admiral.

"What's so funny?" she said tightly.

"You may not want to thank Him just yet!" leered the Admiral. "That Royal Ice Harvester you're talking about… He wouldn't happen to be _that _Royal Ice Harvester, would he?" His eyes pointed towards the gate.

Elsa's own eyes moved to follow his gaze… and then widened with horror.

Coming through the entrance gates were the familiar faces of Kristoff and Sven. The only problem was they were both limping, bloodied, and sporting matching arrow wounds.

"GET A DOCTOR!" Elsa shrieked, dashing towards the pair. "Kristoff, what happened? Where's-?" But she had a bad feeling she already knew the answer.

The boy immediately collapsed into the queen's arms. He coughed, then managed to faintly choke out, "_He_… _took her_…"

In an instant, the queen descended upon the trapped Admiral. Cold air was beginning to seep out of her clenched fists like a tea kettle fixing to boil over. "Where is she?" Elsa's voice alone sounded dangerous.

The Admiral made the mistake of laughing in her face. "'She' _who_?"

The next second, his mouth and nostrils were covered by a sheet of ice. Elsa waited until the Admiral's face blued before dissolving it.

"WHERE'S ANNA?"

The Admiral was beginning to seriously question Adrian's claim about the Snow Queen not killing him.

"The lake!" he answered between gasps for air. "The one you froze!"

The queen spun around, facing the general direction of said lake, and then shot into the air. She rapidly vanished over the horizon, propelled by a jet stream of frosty wind.

The people in the courtyard stood in stunned silence, their heads stuck skywards.

After about two minutes, Kristoff broke the quiet. "She can _FLY_?"

"Of course she can fly," moaned Anders, burying his temple with his palm. "I don't know why I'd just _assumed_ she _couldn't_ fly…"

* * *

The Wight lay belly-up on the muddy floor of his cave, licking his chops. His collection of skeletons had swelled by one more.

"Not bad," he decided, sucking the last little bits off his fingers. "But I'm still hungry… Yes, _always_ hungry..." He turned to gaze at the portrait still resting against the cave's wall. "Soon you'll be _dea_-_eh_-_ed_!" he said in a singsong voice. "And then she'll be _all mine_."

The Wight laughed. He was thinking about the waitress. Another, secret reason he'd chosen her was that she'd reminded the Wight of his worst enemy. And while he knew better than to try to eat his _real_ worst enemy- Where was the fun in that?- a look-alike was an acceptable substitute.

The Wight laughed again. That waitress had greatly amused him. He'd liked the way she'd squirmed. And he'd especially liked the way she'd met her end with absolutely no idea how or why it had happened.

The waitress's final thoughts had been panicked, unanswered questions, such as "What is this _thing _eating me?" or "How did I get here?" or "Why does his cave contain a painting of Princess Anna?"


	13. Damsel in Distress

The carriage bumped over the rocky dirt road, traveling through a small thicket of trees at a fair speed. The princess sat slouched in the back, feet propped up on the seat ahead of her, humming an upbeat tune. "…Gonna go see Kristoff and everything will be awesome…" she mumbled to herself.

The guard guiding the horse glanced over at his coworker seated beside him. They both had perfectly nonchalant facial expressions that practically screamed, "Nothing suspicious going on here!"

The horse suddenly came to a halt. One of the guards turned towards the princess to announce, "Here we are."

"Finally!" Anna eagerly hopped out of the coach and dashed straight for her boyfriend, who was heading her way atop his trusty reindeer.

"Anna, what are you doing here?" Kristoff dismounted to give her a greeting-hug.

"I wanted to come see you as soon as I could!"

"Okay, but, y'know, you could've just waited a few minutes for me to reach the castle," shrugged the boy.

"Yeah, but I was _so bored_! I swear, nothing interesting ever happens around there!" Anna rolled her eyes. "I bet you anything Elsa's still doing that stupid paperwork. If she keeps at it any longer, we'll have to turn her to face the sun and water her twice a day!"

"Alright, then," smirked Kristoff, "Let's head home so we can both be bored out of our minds together."

"Sounds like a plan," said the princess, taking her hairy mountain man by the arm.

But then a voice from behind them said, "Apologies, your Highness. You'll have to cancel that plan."

Anna yelped and spun around to find a tall, muscular man with gray-streaked hair emerging from the trees. Despite the sweltering weather, he wore the heavy brown coat of an ice harvester.

"Adrian?" frowned Kristoff. "What's up?"

"You should leave now, boy." Adrian cracked his knuckles. "This doesn't concern you."

The Royal Ice Harvester held up his hands. "Hey, back up, buddy. I'm not sure I like that tone."

"How perceptive of you." The man's face was passive. "Last chance to leave."

"I don't know what's gotten you so upset lately," said Kristoff, trying his best to sound soothing, "But whatever it is, let's all try and stay calm, okay? We don't want any trouble-"

"Guards, ATTACK!" Anna pointed at Adrian theatrically. There was a pause. "Um… _Ahem_?" The princess glared at her guards. They did indeed have their crossbows drawn, but… "Hey, wait, point those at _him_, not at _me_! What are you-?"

"You're outmatched, Princess Anna," said Adrian. "Don't bother struggling. You're coming with me."

"Oh, I have _every _intention of struggling, mister!" Anna snapped, but then Adrian took a step forward and she shrank behind her boyfriend. "What do we do?" she whispered.

"I don't know!" Kristoff answered, anxiety gripping his voice. He kept gawking at Adrian like he couldn't believe his eyes. "I can't take all three of them by myself-"

But the boy was interrupted by the sound of frantic braying and then a loud _crack_! Sven, sensing his best friend's distress, had rammed into one of the rebel-guards at full force.

"SVEN, NO!" But Kristoff was helpless to stop the other guard from emptying his crossbow into the reindeer's side. Sven thrashed wildly, letting out a feral shriek.

The next instant, said guard found that his face contained significantly more fist than it had a second ago. "YOU DO _NOT _TOUCH MY _REINDEER_!" But unfortunately, this only earned Kristoff his own arrow wound.

"KRISTOFF!" Anna watched in horror as her boyfriend crumpled to the ground, cursing. She tried to run to his side, but she was stopped by a vice grip on her arm.

"_Don't_. _Move_," ordered Adrian. Anna immediately struggled as hard as she could.

"Agh! Dat son ubba bib boke mah node!" The guard not knocked unconscious by a rampaging reindeer aimed his bow at the fallen Kristoff.

"No! Leave him!" snapped Adrian. He turned to Kristoff, ignoring the string of colorful names Anna was calling him, and said, "Go back to the castle, boy. Tell the Snow Queen that if she wants to see her sister again, she should return to the last place we saw each other. _Alone_."

And with that, he trudged off, dragging the squirming princess with him. The still-conscious rebel-guard quickly followed suit, leaving the boy alone to calm his flailing, roaring reindeer. Adrian brought Anna to a small clearing between the trees, where a golden-brown horse waited for them.

"Okay, you got the girl. What now?" asked the guard (His nose was still broken, but nobody likes reading phonetically).

"Here." Adrian tossed the man a sackful of coins- the last little drops of his life savings. "Don't bother rejoining the other rebels. They were never going to overcome the queen. Probably already failed by now. In fact, you'll want to ditch that uniform."

"So after all those uplifting speeches you gave, the whole thing was just a distraction?" The guard snorted and vanished into the woods.

Now Adrian was alone with the princess.

"Look, pal, whatever you're up to, it's not gonna work!" snarled Anna, her struggle to escape his grip unceasing. "Unless you want your ransom paid off in frostbite, in which case I'm sure the palace will be happy to oblige-"

"Hold still or I will hurt you." Adrian sounded matter-of-fact, as if he were instructing a small child.

"_Do your worst_!"

"Fine, then, I'll go back over to your boyfriend and hurt _him_."

Anna gave him another death glare, but she reluctantly allowed Adrian to retrieve some rope from a pack slung over the horse's saddle so that he could bind her arms together.

"Now mount Appelsin." Adrian helped the surly princess sling her leg over the horse, then wordlessly mounted himself. He cracked the reins, sending Appelsin trotting through the shrubs.

"What's your problem with Elsa?" asked Anna. After a few minutes of silence, she scowled and said, "Fine, _don't _tell me." More silence. "I don't think I saw a gag in that pouch of yours. That's too bad because I talk, like, a _whole_ lot, especially when a crazy person's kidnapped me. Hardly ever stop. I hope I'm not bugging you am I bugging you because you know I'd hate to do that…"

They went on for a while like that, the only sound coming from the trot of the horse's hooves and the incessant chatter flying from Anna's mouth. After several long minutes, when they'd put a great deal of distance between themselves and Kristoff, the chatter finally stopped. Adrian allowed himself a small sigh of relief.

But then he heard a thud, followed by an "Oof!"

Adrian halted his horse and spun in his saddle. Anna had, apparently, thrown herself off and was attempting to make a run for it. Adrian sighed, dismounted, and effortlessly recaptured the girl.

"Don't try that again," he ordered, returning her to the horse.

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Anna. She made a face, creasing her forehead and sticking out her tongue, but Adrian didn't appear to react.

Appelsin resumed his gallop. Several more minutes passed. Thud. "Oof!"

Adrian patiently wrestled Anna to the ground again.

"HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!" Anna screamed as loudly as she could (which happened to be extremely loud. It was a great source of personal pride for her). "A CRAZY GUY'S KIDNAPPED ME AND I'M THE PRINCESS AND STUFF!" She tried and failed to kick her captor between the legs.

"Save your breath." Adrian remained stoic as ever. "It's doubtful many other people are traveling through the wilderness in this heat wave." Anna made that face again.

Adrian retrieved some more rope from his saddlebag and bound the princess's legs in the same manner as her arms. Then he slung her lengthwise over the side of the saddle.

After that, their travel was uninterrupted. Well, until it got interrupted, anyways.

Thud. "Oof!"

Adrian halted the horse _again_ and spun in his saddle _again_. He stared disbelievingly at the sight of the girl wiggling uselessly around in the grass like a drowned worm.

"Why did you do that?" he asked. "Your legs are bound. You have no chance of escape. It was pointless."

Anna said nothing and made the face again.

The grizzled man wearily returned his captive to the horse. This time they lasted two whole minutes before he heard another thud and "Oof!"

"You're only prolonging this," said Adrian. Out came the face.

Thud. "Oof!"

"All you're managing to do is bruise yourself from the fall."

The face. Thud. "Oof!"

Adrian roughly deposited the girl into the saddle for the umpteenth time. For once, emotion seeped into his words: "Do that one more time, and I will cut off a finger."

Anna did not make the face this time.

After that, the odd couple spent a whole half-hour traveling without speaking. By this time, Appelsin had taken them out of the forest and into the fjords on the outskirts of Arendelle.

"We're almost to the lake," announced Adrian. "Not much long-"

Thud. "Oof!"

The man halted his horse, dismounted, and slowly walked towards the fallen princess. The smallest twinge of irritation had entered his stoic façade. Anna responded with the rudest, most contorted face her muscles would allow.

Adrian ended up tying her to the back of the horse.

Another long while passed in uneventful silence. Appelsin snorted at the itchy rope wrapped around his belly. Eventually, the silence ended.

"Ouch, my finger," said Anna flatly. "The agony."

"Do you _want _me to hurt you?" snapped Adrian.

"Y'know what I've been thinking?" Anna suddenly said. "You may be a huge jerkhole, but Kristoff said you used to be a nice guy. I don't think you wanted your goons to shoot him, and when they did, you called them off! And you mentioned some rebellion that was meant to fail, so you _knew_ Elsa was never threatened by it! I don't think you actually want to hurt anybody! You're _bluffing_!"

More silence. Adrian gazed up at the brilliant, red sky. "That's a beautiful sunset," he remarked. "I'd savor it, Princess Anna. It's your last."

More silence. "_It's your last_!" Anna repeated in a mockingly deep voice. "Ooh, I'm _so _scared!"

Actually, this was literally true. The princess's pulse was going a million miles an hour, and she could practically feel the adrenaline churning through her veins. In fact, Anna considered this whole ordeal to be the scariest thing she'd ever experienced in her entire life, except maybe the times Hans hadn't kissed her and swung a sword at her sister.

She just didn't want Adrian to know that.

It was at this point that the horse finally arrived at the lake. It looked largely the same as Anna remembered it, only the Ice Harvesters seemed to have gone home for the day, leaving nothing behind but some scattered equipment. The ice also didn't seem quite as thick as the day Elsa refroze it, but it was still pretty non-melted considering it was the dead of a sweltering summer.

Adrian dismounted and diligently slung the protesting princess over his shoulder. "Go home, Appelsin." The horse obediently trotted back over the hilltops. The old man set to work carrying his hostage over the frozen lake, making sure to steer clear of the thinner regions. When he reached the approximate center, he plopped the tied-up princess onto the ice.

"Oh, what a scenic place to die!" Anna said with feigned cheer. "Any particular reason you bothered dragging me all the way out here?"

Adrian looked away from her to again gaze at the sunset.

"Ugh, you are so_ lame_!" scoffed Anna. She was harboring this idea that maybe if she kept her mouth running, the crazy person wouldn't kill her. "At least the last bad guy who tried to snuff me had the decency to monologue his evil plan first! Then I was all like, 'You won't get away with this!' and he was like, 'I already have! Mwah ha ha!'"

No reaction from Adrian. Tough crowd. Anna was really having trouble getting a read of this guy.

"Oh, wait. Don't tell me you're doing all of this just because you're mad Elsa froze the lake!"

It was at this remark that Adrian finally turned around to stare Anna in the eye.

"That has got to be the _dumbest _motivation!" groaned Anna. "For the millionth time, Elsa's ice is NOT poisonous!"

"Princess Anna," Adrian spoke up. "Look over there." He pointed to something a couple feet away from the bound girl; it was a tangled mess of meat and feathers lining a portion of the ice.

"What do a bunch of dead ducks have to do with anything?" Anna tried to appear apathetic, but her interest had been roused. Those birds weren't just dead- They looked like they'd been trampled by a team of horses.

"They were migrating," explained Adrian. "Weren't expecting a frozen lake in the middle of summer. Tried to dive in the water. Didn't end well for them."

"Is it supposed to be Elsa's fault birds are stupid?" Anna huffed. "What are you, some kind of champion for ducks' rights?"

"Sometimes your sister hurts things without realizing it."

"Sure. And how did this make you decide to kill me or whatever you're planning on doing?"

"Does your sister care about you?" Adrian suddenly asked.

"Yes. Lots." Anna stuck her chin in the air and tried to sit up straight. "More than anything."

"Then that's why." The man ceased meeting her eyes. "That's why I'm going to kill you."

Dang it, Anna had been really hoping he'd go with the "whatever you're planning on doing" option.

"Oh, so you're just trying to spite Elsa?" she scoffed. "And you're willing to kill a defenseless, sinless little girl-" Adrian's eyebrows twitched. "-in cold blood _just_ to be petty?"

"Yes." Adrian managed to renew his stoic expression. "It's the only way to have retribution." Something about his words sparked Anna's memory.

"Oh! You're the bad guy from the prophecy!" she realized.

The man was unfazed by the accusation. "I know nothing of any prophecy," he said. "I never wanted any part of the magic that seems to grip this country."

"In that case, maybe you shouldn't be killing the beloved sister of the most powerful sorceress in all of Europe."

"It's too late now, princess. Much too late." A hand reached into the folds of Adrian's coat. It returned with an odd purple-colored sword that seemed to be made of some crystalline material. Anna realized her eyes were fixating on its sharp tip and quickly glanced away.

"I hope you're not expecting me to give you the satisfaction of begging for my life."

"I receive no satisfaction from any of this," said Adrian. "Only deliverance."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a creep?"

The former ice-cutter took his blade in both hands, holding it level with its target. Despite her self-imposed haughtiness, Anna found herself gulping.

Adrian gave her a look Anna almost mistook for sympathy. "I _am_ sorry it has to be this way," he said.

"Yippee. That makes it all _so _much better."

"Defiant to the end? I can respect that."

"Well, that's touching," Anna deadpanned. "Your respect means a lot to me."

The old man's grip on the hilt tightened. He raised the sword a couple degrees into the air.

_Okay, new plan! New plan! _The princess's mind was going fast enough to break the sound barrier. _Anna, you are gonna fast talk like you have never fast talked before, and by the time you're done talking, he won't kill you! Foolproof!_

The sword crept higher.

"So I've been thinking more about what I said earlier about you not wanting to hurt anyone!" she rapidly blurted out. "And, well, obviously you _do _wanna hurt _me_, but, I mean, like, the last guy who tried to murder me was a complete jerk about it. He pretended to be nice, but he was a jerk.

"You, you're like, maybe the other way around? Maybe you're actually an okay guy, but you had a bad day and now you're overreacting?" For the first time, Anna regarded her captor with pity. "It's not too late to stop this. If you've got a problem with Elsa, you can talk about it."

Adrian looked upwards. Then his sword lowered. Well, only a couple inches, but it was a start.

"It can wait," he said.

"What can wait?"

"Killing you," he clarified. "It can wait until the queen gets here. I want her to watch."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Anna slowly matched Adrian's gaze upwards. Then she burst out laughing.

"Oh MAN, _seriously_? Wow, for a second there I thought my life was actually in danger!"

Her captor tensed and held his violet sword at the ready.

"Yeah, no, Elsa's not just gonna sit here and watch you kill me," snickered the princess. "Hallelujah! I'm practically saved already!"

The thing in the sky they were both looking at was, of course, a sky-blue humanoid shape hurtling towards them over the sunset. In a manner of seconds, it grew bigger and bigger and closer and closer until finally it slammed into the lake, landing several feet across from the man and the girl. The impact should have been enough to completely shatter the frozen surface, but instead it actually left the ice _more _solid.

"About time," Adrian said under his breath.

"My _sis_-ter's _go_-nna _kick_ your _butt_!" sang Anna.

* * *

The second before she took off, Elsa had not been aware she could fly. It was one of those aspects of her powers that never seemed to show itself until she needed it- The same as building a castle or making a dress or bringing a snowman to life. They just _happened_. No prior warning.

Elsa should have been amazed. Soaring through the air in a tunnel of icy wind, defying gravity… It was every person's dream. And it felt incredible- The chilly breeze blowing through her hair, the hot light of the setting sun on her face… It was a soothing mixture of warm and cold, and for the first time in her life, Elsa was feeling heat, yet her mind was still crystal clear.

But Elsa hardly noticed. She didn't take in the stunning view of Arendelle or the cool moisture in the clouds or even the fact that she still had on her ice-armor. The only thought going through her head was the single, reoccurring statement that had plagued her nightmares since she was nine:

_Anna is dead._

Elsa pictured waking up, going about her daily routine of brushing her teeth, bathing, heading down to the dining hall for breakfast… with no Anna waiting for her at the table. Being trapped in another dull council meeting… with no Anna to look forward to. Living every day, over and over, for the rest of her life, running the country and waking up and going to bed and _caring_ about _anything_… with no feisty young princess there to join her and laugh with her and hold her and love her.

Nope, nope, nope. Unacceptable. Not happening.

This was all Elsa's fault. How could she have been so _stupid_? How had she not seen this coming? The prophecy! "_Will end only in death_…" The bloodied Anna in the mirror! It was all right there under her nose the whole time and Elsa had actually ordered a bodyguard for _herself _and let Anna leave the castle whenever she wanted! Stupid, stupid, _stupid_!

Despite being unacquainted with viewing the landscape from above, Elsa managed to find the lake without even paying much attention to where she was going. Even at a distance, she could make out the shape of her sister, who was kneeling before another figure she couldn't quite discern.

Elsa's imagination filled in the gaps. Hans, getting revenge? Her father, punishing Elsa for daring to leave her room? The Wight, a formless mass of shadows in Elsa's mind, the embodiment of the kind of senseless carnage that sunk ships without warning?

The queen smashed into the center of the lake. It should have broken every bone in her body, but she could feel the ice bending at her touch, cushioning the landing. Elsa slowly raised her head.

She was having another nightmare. She was on the frozen lake, and the man wielding the sword wasn't Papa and it wasn't Hans and it wasn't the Wight.

"You! That ice-cutter… Adrian?" Elsa recalled, but it only held her interest for a moment. After all, it didn't really matter who he was. He was still holding a sword to her sister's throat.

"Elsa?" Somehow, her impending death didn't seem to have much of an effect on Anna's attitude. "You look _awesome_! Is that _ice-armor_? And were you just _flying_?"

The Snow Queen raised both her arms. "Hand Anna over," she demanded. "Unharmed. _Now_."

Adrian glanced from the queen to the violet blade resting beneath his hostage's chin. He said, "No."

And then he didn't say anything else because Elsa brought the winter down on his head.

Every single snowstorm from the violent blizzards of the north to the continent-spanning climates of unforgiving ice from billions of years ago, all the freezing wind that ever was and ever will be, every last tundra, glacier, snowflake, _all of it _was called towards one compact, person-sized target. It's difficult to even describe. "Really bad snowstorm" doesn't quite do it justice.

Mind you, this wasn't Elsa's powers going out of control again. It was nowhere near the same thing as covering Arendelle in snow after fleeing the coronation. This was a precise, deliberate act of sorcery. The ice was going exactly where the Snow Queen wanted it to- It was even arcing directly around Anna, not so much as nipping the girl's nose.

Let's put it this way: Had any of the cold actually reached Adrian's skin, it would have been the closest a human being could ever get to absolute zero.

The problem was, when the frost-cloud settled several minutes later, the old man was distinctly un-frozen. The only change was that now the sword in his hands appeared to be crackling with energy, vibrating in place, and glowing bright white.

Elsa's eyes widened.

"Wait," said Anna blankly. "What just happened?"

Elsa screamed with frustration and hurled a bolt of magic at the former ice-cutter's head, but the sword immediately sent out a kind of visual distortion that evaporated the magic on contact. Next, the queen tried to direct her magic at the ground beneath Adrian's feet. _She_ had frozen the lake, meaning she could just as easily _un_freeze it and sent her opponent tumbling into the water.

But as it neared him, the magic leapt out of the ground and into the blade like light to a black hole.

"All that power, and it all it takes is a little counter-enchantment to render it worthless," said Adrian. "Almost seems too easy."

For the first time since standing up to the rebels, fear overtook Elsa's face. "Adrian, wait!" she got out, her voice shaking. "You don't have to- We- We can talk about this!"

"Oh, _now _you want to talk?" Adrian glowered at her. "I believe a second ago, you tried to kill me."

"What, no, I-" Fear gave way to desperation. "You can't do this! Your rebellion failed! The palace will arrest you-"

"Queen Elsa, I never expected that rebellion to succeed," cut in Adrian. "It was only ever meant to distract you. Maybe rile you up a bit. And as for my arrest, I will gladly surrender myself to your custody as soon as I'm finished here." He pressed the glowing blade tighter against Anna's neck. The princess, for once, was stone still and silent, save for her thunderous heartbeat.

"Adrian, stop it-!" Elsa's voice was uncharacteristically shrill. She took a tentative step forward.

"Don't come any closer!" the man suddenly yelled. "I'm going to do it, but stay where you are and I'll give you time to say goodbye!"

The princess tried to twist her head, but it was difficult with the sword in the way. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Elsa stood paralyzed. Her mind was racing for answers to this problem, but she didn't like a single one it presented. The queen closed her eyes. "Okay, Adrian," she said quietly. "You win. Just… just let Anna go. It's me you want."

"Elsa, no, don't-" Anna tried to say, but her kidnapper cut her off.

"Wrong again, girl," he said, emotionless. "I never wanted to kill you. I want you alive. I want you to live every day for the rest of your life without _her_." He eyed the girl quivering beneath his sword.

Somehow, Elsa's mind was racing faster yet covering less distance. All she could think to say was, "_Why_? Why are you doing this?" Adrian did not answer.

The thought of trolls and prophecies winked into Elsa's head. "Have I hurt you in some way?" she asked frantically. "Please, I've never wanted my powers to hurt anyone! Whatever it is, I can make it up to you!"

Adrian bowed his head. "There's only one way to make it up to me." He was clenching the hilt so hard, his knuckles were white. "You don't _get _to have a family anymore."

"Please, no!" Elsa pleaded. "Not Anna! She's innocent!"

"That's the point." Adrian moved his eyes away from the sisters. "You might want to hurry up with that goodbye. I'm growing impatient."

Elsa watched her sister with the face of a nine-year-old girl watching her sister's cold body fall to the ballroom floor. "Anna, I… I don't know what to-"

"Shh… Elsa, listen to me." Anna's face was serene. Peaceful, somehow. "You're going to be okay, Elsa."

"ANNA, NO! _I can't do this_!" The tears were coming. The queen fixed her gaze back on Adrian. "PLEASE! Please, you can't, she means everything to me, she's all I have! _I don't even know what I did to hurt you_!"

Adrian stood still. He seemed to be thoroughly examining the queen's face, taking in every minute change. "…You will," he said. The sword rose into the air.

_You're not breathing right again._

"STOP IT!" Elsa's voice was hysteric. "STOP IT! I'LL DO ANYTHING! ANYTHING YOU WANT!"

The sword paused its ascent. Adrian regarded the queen with interest. Apparently, he was considering her offer.

After a while, he said, "Beg."

"Wuh-What?" Elsa wiped her eyes.

"Beg for her."

There was silence on the frozen lake. The sun felt very hot on Elsa's face.

"Elsa, don't you dare-" But Anna hardly had time to protest. Her sister immediately dropped to the ground- hands and knees.

"_Please_," she whimpered. "Oh god, _please_…"

There was something in Adrian's eyes resembling satisfaction. He started to lower his blade.

For maybe a fraction of a second, hope crossed Elsa's face. Just the tiniest sliver of it. And when he saw it, when he was certain it was there, _that's _when Adrian swung the sword at Anna's neck.

Elsa screamed. Every last tendril of her magic instantly shot in Adrian's direction, desperately trying to knock the weapon from his hands. But, of course, the sword was enchanted. No matter how much of it there was, magically-generated ice was powerless to halt its path.

_Clang_!


	14. Ends Only In Death

Now, magically-generated WATER was a different story.

The weapon hit the ground with a distinct _clang_ and skidded across the ice. Even the lake-surface its edge scraped across was unharmed, as without a wielder's mental commands to respond to, the crystal sword was a completely ordinary hunk of rock. And presently, the only candidate for wielding happened to be several feet away. That was several feet of distance that had to be covered without protection from the queen's powers.

Adrian had a look on his face like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Anna, meanwhile, carefully opened her eyelids, found herself on the frozen lake, and felt around her neck. Yep, her head was definitely still attached. Then the girl looked up at her sister.

Elsa seemed just as shocked as Adrian. Her palms looked like tiny waterfalls, the pure, clean liquid pooling at her feet. But the next instant, Elsa collected herself and sent a thin whip of water towards Anna with enough force and precision to brake her restraints.

"Elsa, you did it!" Her limbs freed, Anna immediately ran to her sister. "You finally made-" But then a jet stream shot past her ear. "-water."

Adrian was hit with the force of a fire hose, sending him tumbling in much the same fashion as his sword. Elsa's latest sorcery may not have been solid, but it was still _very cold_.

"NOT MY SISTER!" No tranquility in her voice this time. "YOU DON'T _TOUCH _HER! _YOU DON'T TOUCH HER_!"

Adrian made a valiant effort to return to his feet, but another water-blast quickly took care of that.

Somehow, even though her life was no longer in danger, Anna's heartbeat hadn't slowed. She watched, transfixed, as a wave of her sister's arms turned nearly half the enormous lake's surface back into water. Adrian splashed into the pool alongside his sword.

"NOT MY SISTER!" Another gesture caused the lake's water to suck the man downwards. He was under for several seconds before emerging, gagging and coughing up lake water. "NOT! MY! _SISTER_!" Elsa gave him maybe two seconds to breathe before repeating the process. Adrian was again strong enough to resist the magically-created downward current and surface for air.

The only thought going through Elsa's head was that she needed to give him a _much harder _push, but before she could act on the impulse, she was suddenly knocked off her feet. The queen was about to retaliate with a geyser before she realized who had tackled her.

"Elsa, STOP IT!" Anna shrieked, pinning her sister by the arms.

"Get out of the way, Anna!" yelled Elsa. Her voice sounded much shakier than she'd expected. "The prophecy said this only ends in death! _It's him or you_!"

"Then the prophecy is WRONG because MY SISTER! IS NOT! A MURDERER!"

Both girls held that pose for a while, taking shallow breaths.

"Elsa, please," Anna said faintly. "We won. We can put him in jail."

"Okay. Okay…" Elsa shut her eyes tightly. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, as were Hans's words concerning monsters. "You're right."

The girls returned to their feet and watched over the liquid half of the lake. Adrian was above water and breathing, but he also appeared to be injured, weighed down by his soaked clothing, and far from any solid land.

A flourish of Elsa's hand sent magic his way. At first she impulsively made a stream of liquid water, but then it felt like a switch flipped in her head, and when it landed in the lake, the water was solid. The ice took the shape of a life preserver, complete with a rope of ice-cloth extending to Elsa's hand.

"Grab on!" she called to him.

Adrian slowly turned his head towards the queen's creation. The ring-shaped ice bobbed cheerily. The man had a look on his face that seemed to be disgust.

Adrian raised an arm out of the water, and both girls' eyes widened. The violet sword was back in his hand; Adrian had evidently retrieved it while underwater. With one swift movement, he brought it down on the ice-buoy, vaporizing it instantly.

After that, Adrian allowed himself to go limp and vanish beneath the freezing water.

The sisters stood gaping.

"…What a _tool_," said Anna.

"Oh my God," whispered Elsa. "Did I just kill a man-?"

"NO!" Anna caught her sister off guard by grabbing her shoulders. Anna looked Elsa directly in the eyes and said, "Elsa, that man was _evil_. He tried to _kill me_. You _saved_ me, and you tried to save _him_, too. He clearly went _out of his way _to drown."

Elsa bowed her head. "Yeah… Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I _know_ I'm right."

"But… why did he do any of this?" asked Elsa. "He seemed like he had a personal vendetta against me."

"Ugh! I don't know why crazy people are crazy!" scoffed Anna, rolling her eyes. "He probably got dropped on his head as a baby, same as Hans. Man, I am _so sick _of crazy guys swinging swords at me…"

The queen took one last tentative glance towards the thawed portion of the lake, but it remained motionless. She and her sister turned to walk away.

"Thanks for saving my life, by the way," added the princess. "Guess now we're even!" She gave her sister an affectionate punch on the arm.

"Yeah. Sure." A second ago, Elsa had felt like garbage, but her sister's enthusiasm was contagious. A small smile worked its way across her cheeks.

"You were awesome back there!" said Anna. "I knew you'd come save me, but I wasn't expecting that ice-armor!"

"Oh yeah." Elsa self-consciously ran a hand over the icy plates covering her body. "Some of Adrian's men attacked the castle, and I made it to protect me from their arrows. Nobody was hurt, though- I'll explain later." Then, she added, "Actually, I feel a little silly wearing this…"

"Well, you look _sexy_," Anna assured her.

The sisters were walking over the dangerously thin part of the lake, but with each of Elsa's footfalls, they grew safer and safer.

"And you made water, too!" Anna remembered. "See, I knew you could do it! You just had to learn to deal with heat, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but…" Elsa held out her palm, but the most she could conjure was some scattered slush. "I can already feel it leaving me. Making water… wasn't the same as making ice. I can't describe it exactly, but it was like something snapped inside of me, and now it's back into place…" Her voice trailed off.

"Whatever. We'll figure it out later," shrugged Anna. "The important thing is you did it right when it really counted! Did you see that jerk's face when-" But Anna was interrupted by her sister wrapping her arms around her. "Hey, is everything okay-?"

"I'm just glad you're alive," Elsa got out, her voice shaking.

"I'm glad I'm alive too."

There were those teeth again- the ones Anna hadn't seen nearly enough of.

The princess sensed that things were getting a bit too somber and said, "So, you can fly now?"

"Yes," Elsa grinned.

"I think I know how I wanna get home."

* * *

A tiny brown squirrel scurried about the edge of the trees. The critter had a clear view of the lake and had even jumped once or twice at the sounds of water gushing and voices yelling, but other than that, it remained pleasantly oblivious to the problems of those weird, pink, hairless things.

The squirrel also remained oblivious to the thin, black fingers creeping from the bush right until they wrapped themselves around it. The animal squeaked and thrashed, but it couldn't break free. It tried to claw and bite its captor, but the dark flesh of the hand tasted cold, and it didn't budge or even bleed no matter how hard the squirrel attacked.

"Still… alive?" The squirrel didn't have much of a grasp on language, but the voice made it shudder. "AGH! All that work WASTED!"

The Wight dangled the unfortunate creature by its tail and brought it level to his face. "The sword's at the bottom of the lake now, and I can't fish it out! Getting wet makes my bones ache! Grr… Do you realize how HARD it was to GET that sword? I had to break into the catacombs of Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer!

"And my new pal Adrian's no doubt a waterlogged old corpse by now," the monster added distastefully. "How am I supposed to kill Anna now?" The squirrel didn't reply- It wasn't much of a conversationalist- but the Wight nodded his head and said, "Yes, yes, you're right, I _could_ hide under her bed and come out when she's asleep, but the death has to MEAN something! I need to teach our dear Snow Queen a _lesson_, and for that to happen, I need to kill our worst enemy _without _Elsa seeing her as a martyr! Ugh, now I need to come up with a brand new plan from scratch."

The Wight let out a huff of frustration.

"This is why I hate you, Anna. You didn't even let her murder him like she was SUPPOSED to!" For a second, the squirrel managed to worm its way out of his grasp, but the Wight readily caught it with his other hand. "I need to go think about this," he decided. "Need to rest… All this stress makes me hungry…"

The squirrel's frantic squeaks grew louder, then silent.

* * *

"Wow… I can't believe they're really gone…"

The gallery was unrecognizable- nothing but dark ash where there were supposed to be exquisite paintings.

"I know it sounds stupid, but… I used to talk to them when…" Anna brought a hand to her eyes. "Y'know, when there was no one else… around… They were my friends."

Elsa gave her sister what must've been the dozenth hug they'd shared since re-entering the scarred palace. "I know," she said, "and I'm sorry. If I had just acted sooner…"

"No, no, it's fine." Anna forced herself to stop crying. Elsa had enough guilt on her shoulders as it was. "It's just stuff. The important thing is no one got hurt."

"Yeah… Well, actually, it looks like _one_ picture survived." The queen pointed to a spot on the wall.

All the wood and wallpaper around it had been turned completely black, but somehow, this one, lone painting had escaped the fire.

"Joan!" Anna looked like she'd seen an old friend return from the dead. She immediately dashed over to put her arms over the charred wall beneath the frame in a hug of sorts.

"I don't know how it made it," said Elsa pensively. "I guess I put the fires out just in time."

Suddenly, Anna giggled.

"What?" asked Elsa.

"It's kind of fitting, don't you think?" said Anna. "Everything burned _except_ her."

"…I don't get it."

"Nevermind."

Unlike Joan, Elsa was now back in a dress, alongside a pair of ice-heels to replace the ones she'd tossed during the chaos. This came as quite a relief to the girl- That armor had been _very _uncomfortable. Well, actually, the high heels weren't much better, but at least she was used to those.

There wasn't much else to say after that. The sisters walked out of the gallery and down the halls. The corridors were as scorched and deformed as the rest of the castle. Elsa thought back to how she'd been chased down the flaming halls mere hours ago, but somehow, with her sister at her side, it didn't seem as scary anymore.

Elsa took Anna by the arm. "Hey," she said, "I love you."

Anna gave a coy smile. "And I love you, too, _of course_."

That was one good thing that came out of tragedies, Elsa thought. They made you appreciate what you had.

"Oh! Oh! Elsa! I've got it!" Anna suddenly said as the pair continued down the halls (Think cowboys riding off into the sunset). "I know a way you can use your ice-powers to help people! You can _fight crime_! Think about it! It'd be the awesomest…"

Elsa rolled her eyes. Okay, so she didn't have to appreciate _everything_ her sister said.

(Though if I may insert some editorial slant, I'd just like to say I think Elsa was missing out on a golden opportunity here.)

* * *

There was a prison-island somewhere between Arendelle and the Southern Isles where war-criminals and other people convicted of high crimes were dumped when they weren't considered worth the trouble of hanging. Elsa had never seen it herself, but the warden had personally assured her it wasn't a fun place to live. Fortunately, ever since the end of her parents' reign, there hadn't been many occasions to dust it off. In fact, Elsa had been intending to _never_ send anyone there.

But she was willing to make some exceptions.

The Admiral and his men were marched across the lamp-lit pier in handcuffs. Most of them still had bits of ice in their hair and on their clothes, and at least one had an entire foot frozen in a block. The non-traitorous guards had scraped them out while Elsa was off rescuing her sister, and the queen had "accidentally" forgotten to dispel their ice.

The Admiral paused his forced-march at the end of the dock.

"Hurry up onto the boat," ordered a guard, prodding him in the back with his spear.

The Admiral scowled. "We'll see how condescending you are when _I'm_ in _heaven_!"

But just then, the royal sisters entered the pier, and the guards stopped to bow. The Admiral's scowl deepened.

The sisters traded glances. Then the queen pointed right at him and said, "That one." The princess made a bee-line for the Admiral.

"Oh?" he smirked. "And to what do I owe this pleas-?"

_Crack_!

The man hit the floor. He had some really nasty names he wanted to call the princess, but his jaw didn't appear to be working.

"_That_ was from Mom and Dad!" yelled Anna. Then she spat on the Admiral as hard as she could.

The guards ended up having to drag the Admiral onto the boat kicking and screaming.

"Well, I can mark _that_ off my bucket list," said Anna cheerily, walking back to her sister. "So does everyone just call that guy 'the Admiral?' Doesn't he have, like, an actual name?" Elsa shrugged.

"I can't believe I was so scared of _him_ that I nearly let the castle burn down," said the queen. "But, you know, it was your advice that helped me deal with my fears. Like you said, sometimes it's not about being brave, it's about not wanting your loved ones hurt more than not wanting _yourself_ hurt."

"What?" frowned Anna. "I never said that. And I'm PLENTY brave!"

"Really? Nevermind, then…" Elsa looked lost in thought.

After another few minutes, the prison-ship finally departed. The sisters sat at the pier for a while, watching it shrink into the distance under the northern lights.

"_Bon voyage_!" Anna called out after it. "Have fun in jail! Send Hans our love!"

* * *

"Aaaaagh!" The queen was cornered, a wall of fire on one end, a mob of angry men on the other.

"Prepare to DIE, Snow Queen!" yelled the Admiral, raising his sword dramatically. "Mwah ha ha HA!"

"_Ohhhh_, I'm _too scared_ to use my powers!" The queen cowered, weeping. "If only there was someone big and strong to come to my rescue!"

Just as the rebels were about to strike, a deep, confident voice shouted, "Leave Queen Elsa alone!" Out of nowhere, a horse landed between the mob and the queen, and riding atop it was a man twice as tall and thrice as muscular as any of the rebels.

"Oh nooooo!" said the Admiral.

The tall, dark stranger did a backflip off his horse and quickly dispatched of the attackers with his bare hands.

"Ohhhh Fritz!" The queen swooned, then wrapped her arms around her savior. "That was SO manly!"

"Well, when you're a fine physical specimen like myself, that kind of thing comes easy," said Fritz, flexing his vast collection of muscles.

"You saved my life." Her face moved closer to his. "How could I _ever_ repay you…?" It moved closer… and closer…

"Are you awake?"

Like a bubble popping, Fritz opened his eyes to find himself lying in bed. He seemed to be in an unfamiliar room (the castle infirmary), but he was having trouble wondering where he was because thinking was making his head throb. Fritz reached up and felt his forehead. Bandages.

It all came flooding back. The mob. The fire. Getting punched really hard in the face. His brain must not have been fully healed, though, because Fritz's initial though was, _I'm dead_.

"I'm glad to see you're okay," said a wonderful, wonderful voice. It was the queen, and she was standing at his bedside, and she was looking _directly at him_.

_Is this… heaven_?

_Well, given the thoughts going through your head concerning the queen, that's probably too much to expect_, said the part of Fritz's brain devoted to insulting himself.

_Oh no_, realized Fritz. _I'm not dead. I'm _dying! _These are my last moments on Earth_!

_You're absolutely right_! said all the morphine in Fritz's system. _Now's your last chance! You have to tell her how you feel about her! There can't be any consequences if you're dead!_

Fritz tried to say, "I love you, Queen Elsa!" but all that came out was, "Ahwuvyuhmmphmuuuur…" Huh, his tongue seemed much heavier than normal.

_Fine, take it to the grave. But at least say something poignant and romantic before you expire._

"You…" said Fritz, navigating his tongue carefully, "You were my new…" But then he had to stop to cough up some phlegm. Elsa took a few steps back from the bed.

"Listen, we need to talk," she said.

_Talk_? This jump-started Fritz's brain into alertness. Talking was what girls did when they wanted to confess their feelings for you! Talking was the first step towards marriage, which was the first step towards making babies, which-

"As you might remember, the castle was just subjected to a rebellion," explained Elsa sternly. "The rebels slipped past our defenses because a large portion of the guards turned traitor… and _every single one_ had been recently put on the staff by the Admiral."

Fritz gulped.

"With one exception," continued the queen. "One new guard actually stood up to the rebels, though he was quickly beaten unconscious."

Dang it! Whoever that guy was, the queen probably liked _him_ and not Fritz!

"But the rebels also deliberately used fire in an attempt to scare me." The queen's eyes narrowed. "And my sister assured me she never told a soul about my apparent phobia."

It took Fritz's mind a few seconds to connect the dots. _Uh oh_. He had a bad feeling being blamed for the castle getting set on fire would hurt his chances with Elsa.

"Is there anything you would like to tell me?" asked the queen, her voice like a mother scolding a child.

Fritz gulped again. He was beginning to wish he really _had_ been dying.

"I didn't know about any rebellion!" he got out, his voice cracking. "Nobody ever tells me anything! I don't know why that Admiral guy hired me! I don't-" And then it struck him. Why would _anyone_ do something overtly nice for Fritz? "To be honest, Your Majesty, I think… I think maybe the Admiral just hired me so he could laugh behind my back." He bowed his head, though it hurt to move under all those bandages.

Elsa folded her arms. "And the time the Admiral took you out?"

"He… got me drunk," the boy admitted, his face flushing. "I don't even remember it too well, but that's probably when I… told them about your, err, reactions to fire."

Elsa let out a sigh. "So you were never _intentionally _helping them?"

"What? No! I wouldn't! I love you! THE CROWN, I mean! I love the crown. I am _so loyal_ to the monarchy."

Another sigh. Elsa didn't look particularly happy with Fritz, but he didn't think she was going to hang him for treason anymore, so that was a step in the right direction.

"Anything else you have to say?" she asked.

Okay, time to bite the bullet, Fritz decided. He pulled himself halfway out of the covers, took a deep breath, and said, "I… I guess I'm turning in my resignation."

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"I've been a pretty terrible bodyguard," Fritz admitted. For the first time, his voice wasn't squeaky. It was somber. "I'm pretty sure I was only hired as a joke by the Admiral. That's all I am… a stupid joke… You deserve better. You need a bodyguard who won't screw everything up…"

Maybe it was just the morphine, but Fritz could feel his tear ducts readying.

"It's… It's fine… I was pretty much expecting to fail at this job anyways… I mean, I've failed at everything else I've ever tried… Used to it…" He stopped to sniff loudly.

_And now you're bawling in front of the girl you like_, said the insulting-part of Fritz's brain. _Very macho_. _I'm sure she's impressed_.

Fritz flipped over on the mattress. He couldn't bear to look at the object-of-his-affection's face right now and see that doubtlessly disgusted, condescending grimace she was probably giving him.

"…Too much of a wimp to herd reindeer," the boy ranted between sobs. "Too stupid to get an education… Can't hold down a good job for longer than two weeks… Sometimes I don't even do anything wrong… World just barges in and makes rebels punch me in the face… makes the stable door break so the reindeer can run rampant… makes my dad get on a boat one day and never come back…" He buried his face in his sleeve. All that crying was making his head injury throb again.

"…I'm sorry," said Elsa quietly.

It dawned on Fritz what he had just said, and he nearly tore a ligament in his frantic struggle to remove his foot from his mouth. "NO NO NO I didn't mean it like that! His boat didn't sink or anything! He just left! I, uh, I don't think he loved my momma or me very much."

"I see." Elsa turned her attention towards staring at the wall.

_You brought up her dead parents_, said that part of Fritz's brain. _Good going, Romeo. _

"Yeah, I… I guess my dad thought I was a loser, too." Fritz let out a very, _very_ bitter laugh.

Fritz felt confident Queen Elsa now officially saw him as a complete idiot. But of course, he wasn't a mind reader. He had no idea what she was thinking right now.

He had no way of knowing Elsa was remembering a time when a fourteen-year-old girl had lay in a similar bed, yelling at her mother, "Make Anna the queen! I can't do this! I'll _never_ control it!"

With no prior warning, Fritz felt something cold touch his arm. All his crying and self-pity came to an abrupt halt.

"You're _not_ a loser," said Elsa.

Fritz would have been slightly less awestruck if the Second Coming of Jesus had just happened.

"And I wouldn't have anyone else as my bodyguard." The queen flashed him a smile.

Fritz's tongue was feeling heavy again. "Oh, uh, Queen Elsa, no- I- I couldn't! You need better than me. You should just fire me and hire a stronger boyfr- BODYGUARD!"

Elsa's smile widened. "I mean, I don't want to tell anyone else, so I really have no one else to talk to about my nightmares, now do I?"

Fritz felt weak at the knees, and he wasn't even standing up. Was he having… an actual _conversation_ with Elsa? It was like something out of his wildest fantasies.

Her hand was still touching his arm. When Fritz's eyes lingered, Elsa slowly removed it. The sleeve felt cold from where the palm had pressed against it. Fritz was never washing this uniform again.

"You know what?" spoke up Elsa. "I don't think I ever got your name."

The boy opened his mouth to tell her, but then he realized he couldn't remember it, either. After a pause lasting _just_ long enough to be awkward, he finally got out, "Fritz." It sounded faint.

Then, he amended, "I mean, uh, well, that's my first name, but I guess you should call me Gudmund since you're my superior and we need to stay formal. In fact, should I even be calling you 'Queen Elsa?' Because I can switch to your last name if that makes you less uncomfortable- I mean, uh, more comfortable. Not that I make people un… uh… I have a middle name, too- _Do you even _have_ a last name?_- It's Herman! Wait, what?"

As Fritz was vomiting out words, Elsa turned to walk out the door and into another section of the infirmary. "I need to go check on somebody else now," she told him.

_You scared her away_, said the self-loathing center of Fritz's brain. _I guess that was pretty inevitable_.

But right before closing the door behind her, Elsa hesitated, then turned back around. "I thought you were _very_ brave, Fritz." The door closed.

Fritz spent the next five hours staring at the ceiling, engaged in a lengthy internal debate over whether or not this was a sign she was into him. Pity, he eventually decided. It was definitely pity.

But Fritz had learned that sometimes in life, you had to take what you could get.


	15. No Escape From the Storm Inside of Me

Elsa had thought losing control of her powers was the most frightening thing that could ever happen to her. She'd been wrong. She was controlling them perfectly; every drop of water was going exactly where she intended. But she was still killing him.

The man tried to break the lake's surface, tried to fill his lungs with something besides liquid, but Elsa would not allow it. She could sense all the lake's water as if it were touching her skin… She could feel the exact moment Adrian's struggles ceased. The way his limp body slowly drifted to the lake-bed.

Someone was tackling her. Elsa's arms were pinned.

"You killed him!" screamed her sister. "I won't love a MURDERER!"

Elsa awoke to find every inch of her bedroom covered in ice. No surprises there. Her bodyguard- _Fritz_, she reminded herself- was still in the infirmary. Nobody to wake her when she started to toss and turn.

Elsa ought to have fallen back asleep easily. The previous day had been a marathon of filling out paperwork, enduring a sweltering courtyard, engaging in a snowball fight, running from rebels, beating the snot out of rebels, flying, rescuing Anna, and then returning home to stay up late into the night dealing with the repercussions of having your castle set on fire. By all right, she should've been able to drift off the instant her head returned to the pillow.

But closing her eyes was enough to make the nightmares flash through her brain again.

Elsa could feel her eyelids protesting as she opened them. Everything looked as black as when they were closed. That meant she couldn't have been asleep more than an hour or two. Despite her every impulse telling her otherwise, Elsa forced herself out of the covers, vanished the ice she'd made, and then headed out the door- or rather, the empty doorframe. The reminder of the rebellion made her skin crawl.

The queen wandered aimlessly down the lamp-lit halls. A good portion of the building had been roped-off due to the fire damage, though, which limited her options. She ended up somewhere near the kitchens, which had escaped mostly unscathed. But Elsa didn't take in her surroundings until a strange smacking noise snapped her into alertness. She entered the kitchen to investigate, only to find a surprising sight.

"_Anna_? What are you doing up?"

The princess was seated at a table, her hair somewhere halfway between the beauty of its pre-sleeping form and the pandemonium of its post-waking form. Before her was a plate piled high with chocolate pieces, which her hand was paused halfway towards. Anna's lips were painted completely brown. She stared at Elsa for several seconds, her cheeks puffed like a chipmunk storing nuts, before swallowing in one big gulp.

"…Nothing," said Anna.

This particular situation wasn't exactly atypical of Anna, but what _did_ surprise Elsa was that Anna hadn't snuck in alone this time. Gerda was hovering directly over her shoulder.

"Gerda? You know Anna's not supposed to be late-night snacking!" scolded the queen.

"Queen Elsa! Of course, I meant no harm!" the maid said, flustered. "The princess was simply upset, and I was letting her have a little treat to calm down-"

Anna shot the woman a glare, which made her clam up.

"I'm totally fine," Anna assured her sister. "I was just pigging out. You know me. I'm a bad girl! Gerda was trying to stop me, but I was too feisty and rebellious for her!"

"I see. Well, in that case…" Elsa leaned in to whisper something to Gerda. The woman nodded, then exited the room. Elsa seated herself in the chair beside Anna, taking a generous helping of the chocolate for herself. "You okay?" she asked.

"What? Yeah, of course!" Anna put on a big, showy grin. "I'm fine, Elsa, honest. You don't have to worry about me. I always stay up late. I'll make up for it by sleeping in tomorrow.

"And I only came in here because I was bored! Kristoff's still in the infirmary, and he didn't want to visit with me! He wanted to SLEEP!" Anna threw her hands in the air indignantly. "Can you _believe_ him?"

"Anna, it's half-past midnight."

"So what? I'm not-" A yawn escaped Anna's mouth. "-not even a little bit tired."

"_Anna_." Elsa placed a hand over her sister's. "What were you upset about?"

"Mmm, this chocolate is _so_ good, I want some more-"

"_Anna_."

"Okay, okay!" The girl looked at her feet. "I just… had a stupid dream. That's all."

"And what happened in this 'stupid dream?'"

"Well," started Anna, "I was riding on Sven in a thunderstorm, and then he, like, took off, and we flew through the clouds, and then lightning hit me and I died and it was scary. That's all. Honest to God."

"I see." Elsa sighed and met her sister's eyes. "Know why I was up?" Anna shook her head. "I was having nightmares. Well, I've been having them every night, really. Ever since I froze your mind. I'm sorry I never told you before. I guess I… didn't want you to worry.

"But I see now that I was wrong to do that. You care about me, and you would do anything to help me, but you can't if I'm not open with you." Elsa gave Anna a meaningful look.

"…What kind of nightmares?" Anna asked quietly.

The queen closed her eyes. For once, she deliberately allowed the images to spring to mind. "Usually, they're about accidentally killing someone important to me," said Elsa, her voice hushed. "But tonight, it was about killing someone on purpose."

She placed her other hand on Anna's.

"Anna, I am _so glad_ you stopped me from killing Adrian. Everything you said was absolutely right, and I could never live with myself if my powers did that to anyone. But I let myself get so scared and upset because… I really thought I was going to lose you, and I couldn't stand it… Anna, you are the best part of my life, and I want you in it forever, and I will never, _ever_ let _anyone_ hurt you."

Elsa had honestly thought she was going to tear up before she could finish, but she surprised herself by keeping her voice even.

It was Anna who burst out crying.

"Elsa I'm sorry I lied my nightmare wasn't really about that!"

Elsa was almost shocked. She'd figured Anna was more upset than she'd let on, but the only other time Elsa had heard her lose it like this was on the other side of a locked door three years ago.

"Shh, Anna, it's okay, I'm here-" The princess didn't wait to be asked before throwing her arms around her sister and burying her face in her shoulder.

"I was dreaming about being with Hans and I know he's a jerk but sometimes in my dreams I forget and then he turned into Adrian and he had a sword and- and-" Anna's shoulders were heaving. "I saw a man drown _right in front of me_! It-was-the-_worst_-thing-I've-eh-eh-ever-_seen_!"

Elsa hugged her sister as tightly as she could. She wished it could've been tighter.

"I haven't really been happy since that guy kidnapped me!" Anna choked out. "I was pretending!"

"I know," said Elsa.

"I didn't want to make you worried."

"I know," she repeated, "But take it from me, Anna, concealing how you feel is a _terrible_ way to handle things."

Anna nodded.

It was at this point that Gerda returned to the kitchen. She carried a tray, resting on which were two cups.

"Thank you." Elsa acknowledged the servant for only a moment before returning her attention to her sister. "Anna," she said, searching for something comforting to say, "I know you loved the portraits lost in the fire, but… if you want, we can get new ones. Most of the pictures had been there for decades. If we buy new ones, you can pick them all out yourself. It'll be nothing but ones you like."

"Yeah… Yeah, let's do that…" Anna seemed to cheer up at the idea (Of course, what Elsa didn't realize was that she was in for a gallery full of only the most surreal paintings on the market).

"It's a shame about the portraits," spoke up Gerda as she set the girls' drinks before them. "Those thugs made sure to hit nearly all your family paintings, and, you know, some of those can't be replaced…" The sisters both winced. Gerda had danced around using the "p" word.

"Anna and I will gladly pose for new portraits," said Elsa.

"Speak for yourself! If I have to sit still for hours _again_, I will _scream_!"

"Actually, I think that man we commissioned to do the last set of royal portraits might have some replicas on hand," said Gerda thoughtfully. "But I don't think he's been heard from lately…"

"Mmm." Elsa made a noncommittal grunt and took a sip of her drink.

That was when Anna noticed the steam rising out of it. Her eyes widened, and she quickly peered into her own cup. Yep, milky brown liquid.

"Hey!" she grinned. "Why on earth would you want to have the absolute _worst_ chocolate in all the world?"

Elsa smiled. She looked proud of herself. "I was wrong. It's not bad; it just takes some getting used to, that's all."

"Yeah… That or you used your powers to cool it down."

"Well, you're not _supposed _to drink it scalding!"

"Whatever you say, _cheater_."

* * *

"Sir, I insist you return to your bed! The doctor said-"

"I don't care! I want to see my reindeer!"

"Well, you can't venture to the stables in your condition-"

"Then bring _Sven_ up _here_!"

"I think, sir, I might see it lit on fire again before I allow an animal into this castle."

The infirmary entryway was blocked by a tired and overworked butler. Standing across from him was a large boy with a head of unmanly blond hair and a cast covering his leg. Kristoff had been there when his reindeer woke up every morning since they were both little, and he wasn't about to let some silly arrow wound or broken leg end that trend.

Olaf was there too, hanging out near Anders's feet. Ever since they'd bonded during the rebellion, Anders had been marginally less disdainful towards the snowman, which Olaf had taken as a sign Anders never wanted him to leave his presence.

"C'mon, the last time Sven saw me, I was on a stretcher!" Kristoff said. "He probably spent the night scared to death! And besides, I need to make sure he's okay. I don't trust the queen's fancy-pants horse doctors to patch him up right."

"Sir, I am reasonably certain the animal will survive not being in your constant presence," Anders replied tightly. "We can get you a crutch as soon as the doctor's finished with you. Now please sit back down and refrain from worsening your injury. If her boyfriend becomes a paraplegic on my watch, the princess will be quite cross with me."

"Ooh! Ooh! I have an idea!" Olaf suddenly spoke up, raising a stick-arm into the air. "I can go visit Sven for you and tell him you're okay!"

"Yes! Do that!" Anders immediately said (He'd developed the strategy of inventing extensive tasks for Olaf to do whenever he needed alone time).

"And then I'll come back and let you know what Sven says!" added Olaf.

"Uh, yeah, sure, but, uh, you _do_ know Sven can't really talk, right?" said Kristoff. "It's just me doing ventriloquism."

Olaf's snow-jaw dropped. "The… The world seemed so simple before now…" He walked out towards the stables lost in contemplation.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, I'd best be going." Anders turned to leave, straightening his dress jacket. "I have had quite enough excitable teenagers for one day-"

"KRISTOFF, you're awake!" Princess Anna burst into the room and ran to give her boyfriend a big hug.

Anders grumbled something about "kids these days" and then slinked out the door.

Elsa entered the infirmary after her sister. For once, she had joined Anna in sleeping in. After the events of the previous day, the queen felt she was entitled to at least that much.

"Good to see you two in high spirits after everything hit the fan yesterday," said Kristoff. "Man, I still can't believe there were _that many_ people dumb enough to try and mutiny against the girl who _froze the whole country_ the last time she got ticked off."

"Yeah, well, they're toast now," smirked Anna. "Actually, I guess they're more like frozen bread. You get the idea."

"Do you think this has anything to do with that prophecy stuff?"

"Absolutely," nodded Elsa. "Adrian was definitely the first enemy it talked about."

"One down, two to go!" added Anna.

"I just don't understand why he hated me so much."

"Hey, I'm just as confused as you," shrugged Kristoff. "I've known Adrian for years. I mean, I wasn't, like, close with him, but I didn't peg him as the type who'd ever try and _kill_ anyone! And he definitely never acted all gruff and serious. He hung out with the other ice harvesters, he had a wife, he told jokes-"

"Wait," cut in Elsa. "A wife?"

"Yeah, I think they had a house out by the fjords," said Kristoff. "Why? Is that important?"

* * *

A carriage bounced over the rock-studded road towards the fjords.

"…Don't see why we ever go anywhere in this thing anymore if you can fly now," grumbled Anna from the backseat.

"We're not going to drop out of the sky and land in this poor woman's backyard," came Elsa's reply from the front.

"Poor?" scoffed Anna. "If her husband's such a psycho, and she married the guy, what does that tell you about her?"

The queen turned to eye her sister. "Your boyfriend insists she is regarded as a lovely woman. In all likelihood, she's unaware of her husband's actions, and… we need to break it to her gently. Alright?"

Anna reluctantly nodded her head.

"Besides," added Elsa, "this may be our only chance to learn why Adrian held a vendetta against me."

The girls had tried to do some research on Adrian before heading over, but the most they'd unearthed on short notice was some old housing records giving his surname (Dale), address (somewhere out by the fjords), and wife's name (Hedda).

After what seemed to Anna like an awfully long time compared to instantly flying there, the carriage finally rolled to a stop, and a guard opened the side door. Maybe it was just because of the last time she'd exited a carriage, but Anna was getting a strange sense of foreboding.

Noticing her hesitation, Elsa said, "You can wait outside if you want, Anna."

"And leave you in there alone? No way!" This was enough to make the princess hop right out of her seat. "Besides, you just handed a whole big mob of thugs their rears. How much trouble could one little old lady give us?"

The house of Adrian and his wife was a modest, wooden one with faded paint, and it rested on the edge of a small cliff overlooking an inlet of seawater. A golden-brown horse lurked by the side of the building, regarding the newcomers curiously. All this coupled with the hot summer sun and pleasant breeze should have made the home come off as charming and welcoming.

But somehow it didn't. Elsa had to force herself to put one foot in front of the other until she'd reached the welcoming mat.

One of her accompanying guards pounded on the door for her. "Mrs. Dale?" he called out. "This is the palace guard. The queen requires an audience with you."

They waited several minutes. No answer. That sense of foreboding was gripping Anna again.

But then the door crept open.

The woman standing before them seemed a bit too pretty to be grandmotherly and a bit too gray-haired to be youthful. But she also seemed frail; her hand trembled over the doorknob.

"H-Hello?" Her voice sounded a little _too _soft, like it was broken.

"Mrs. Dale, my sister and I came to speak with you about your husband." Elsa put on her "queenly" voice, as if this whole ordeal was only mildly interesting to her.

"_Did he try and hurt you_?"

Elsa didn't know what she'd expected, but it certainly hadn't been for the woman to immediately break down.

"Thank God you're alright! I think he- I think he lost his mind! He threatened me! I've been too scared to leave the house! I… I thought he would… Where is he? Is he in jail?"

Elsa glanced uneasily back at her sister, but all Anna could offer was a sad stare.

There were times Elsa didn't feel like the queen. Despite the crown on her head and the servants heeding her every command, Elsa's mind would insist that she was a little girl, and gray-haired old ladies were grown-ups, and it wasn't supposed to be the little girl's job to tell the grown up something like, "I'm sorry… Your husband… took his life yesterday evening."

Elsa wished Anna had stayed in the carriage. Anna had seen too much mourning in her life.

The royal sisters and guards were led inside silently. The interior of the house, much like the exterior, should have been inviting- the sisters seated themselves on a cozy couch near a window that streamed in sunlight- but once again there was some imperceptible quality that made Elsa uneasy.

After a while, Mrs. Dale calmed enough to ask an even more difficult question: "How did he die?" Elsa had entered the house vowing to spare this pitiable woman the truth- at least give her _some_ comfort. But then she thought about being forced to her hands and knees on the frozen lake.

She told his wife everything. The only parts she left out were the magic sword and the prophecy, and only because she felt civilians needn't concern themselves with magic. The atmosphere of the room became cold, and not from Elsa's powers, either. Even Anna managed to stay silent for the entire story.

After what felt like forever, Elsa reached the end of her tale. "Do you know what possessed your husband to do that?" she asked. "My sister and I came here because we were hoping for some answers…"

Mrs. Dale took a while to reply. "…Follow me outside," she said, her eyes on the floor.

Elsa ordered her guards to stay put, then exited the house alongside her sister. The queen was glad for the chance to leave- She wasn't sure _why_ that living room had made her so anxious.

Maybe it was the fact that Mrs. Dale was wearing a black dress. Maybe it was the ragdoll lying abandoned on the floor in the corner of the room… or the tiny rocking horse beside it.

The widow led the girls to a small hill several yards from the house. They marched in silence until they reached the top, where a large oak tree had taken root.

"She used to love sitting up here," the woman said softly.

Anna looked lost, making Elsa the first to catch on. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "Parents… Parents and their children shouldn't have to be separated."

"I know we started late, but… Adrian had wanted one so badly…" The woman's voice was no longer shaking. She sounded at peace. "Her name was Emma. Adrian loved her… more than anything. But… she was sick. Doctors never could tell us why. That happens sometimes. It's so… so senseless. One day she'd be full of life and the next… no energy. No enthusiasm. It happens.

"Emma loved being outside, but, well… as time went by, she could do it less and less… bedridden… She was hardly ever allowed to go far from home. Maybe… Maybe that's why she took such a liking to you two… Nobody ever saw the princesses leave _their_ home. She must have seen kindred spirits, I don't know…

Both sisters had brought a hand to their mouths.

"One day, years ago, back when she was still strong enough to come into the city with me, we caught a glimpse of Princess Anna. I think that was one of the few times you ever left the castle."

Anna blinked in surprise, then blushed at the memory. She personally remembered it less as "leaving the castle" and more as one of a handful of escape attempts during Anna's "rebellious teenager" phase (which she never _had_ completely grown out of, come to think of it). It had ended with the palace guards dragging her back home kicking and screaming, which had drawn quite a crowd.

"That's when she started liking you two," continued Mrs. Dale. "I guess Princess Anna reminded her of herself… Your hair even looked alike."

Anna ran a hand over her pigtails. Her hairstyle hadn't really changed since she was four, to be honest.

"When the new queen's coronation was announced, Emma naturally wanted to see it. She wanted to see it so badly, and… _I wish we had let her_." Voice shaking. "But the night before, she had one of her worst spells, and she was just too weak to travel that far.

"She spent all day sitting up on this hill. I think… she was listening… seeing if she could hear any of the music in the distance. Adrian and I… We both stayed home to keep an eye on her, but… it was a beautiful summer day. We didn't see the harm in letting her sit outside under a tree. How could we?"

If Elsa had to write a list of all the moments in her life where it felt like the world was collapsing on top of her shoulders, it would include: Watching her little sister fall limply to the ballroom floor. Anders knocking on the door to inform her Mama and Papa would not be returning from their voyage. Listening to her sister cheerfully inform her of her plans to marry a charming man she met a couple hours ago. The panicked stare of the masses as they watched her freeze a fountain. Her little sister, perched on the frozen harbor, nothing left of her but her shape in ice. The halls of the castle alight with flames while Elsa cowered in her room, failing to control her lungs. Adrian's sword falling towards Anna's neck.

And the widow's next five words:

"And then the snow came."

She didn't sound sad. Just hollow.

"It was falling so fast, and right away Adrian _knew_ something was wrong, and he ran out towards the hill _immediately_, but… by the time he got there… up to his knees… She was eight."

Anna looked like she'd been told the sky was green. "But…there weren't any reported casualties!" she protested, her voice trembling.

The woman shook her head. "We never told anyone… When Adrian found out what caused the winter, he… snapped. He couldn't get over it. I've been hiding in the house for… I don't know _how_ long…

"I tried to tell him… tell him it wasn't your fault, Your Majesty. You were just scared and you-"

But Elsa interrupted her. She didn't say anything- just made a noise. Somewhere between a sob and a scream.

Elsa was pale. No, pale was how she _normally_ looked. Elsa looked like she'd been in the grave a day.

On impulse, Anna opened her mouth to say something comforting. "Elsa, no- It's- You're-" But her mind was firing blanks.

Elsa couldn't look at her sister. _Definitely_ couldn't look at the old woman standing under the tree.

_Not breathing right._

The only thing that made any sense to Elsa was to spin around and shoot upwards on a jet of cold wind. She flew far and she flew fast.

_Don't think. Don't think. Don't-_

Even in the open sky, Elsa felt claustrophobic.

_**End of Part One**_

* * *

**_Author's Note:_ Well, I think this is a GREAT stopping point, don't you? Story will be going on hiatus for a bit. Maybe like a month or so. I need to do something unproductive with my time for once. I need to sleep and play video games. Ever since it hit theaters, I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing Frozen. I think writing the 60,000 word fanfic earns me a small break at least.**


	16. Life's Too Short

_**Author's Note:** _**Dang it, I was trying to cure my Frozen addiction and I just relapsed HARD. Oh well. I know it hasn't been nearly a month yet. I lied. Sue me. This doesn't mean I'll be updating regularly any time soon. Probably. And this is a short chapter anyways! I CAN STOP WHENEVER I WANT, DANG IT!**

* * *

Anna's mind had reloaded, and now it was firing just fine.

Bullet One: A troll prophecy telling Elsa, "The second enemy is yourself." Anna had brushed it off at the time. Yourself? What did that even mean? How can you be your own enemy?

Bullet Two: Anna watching helplessly as, across the frozen harbor, Hans lifted his sword. Elsa was on her knees, surrendered, offering no resistance… because she thought she had killed someone.

_How can you be your own enemy?_

Anna's face was pure horror. She looked at the old woman leaning against the tree. "Um sorry I gotta go bye!" Mrs. Dale only watched sadly as Anna bolted down the hillside.

Even at top speed, it still took Anna an eternity to reach the house. Her first impulse was to hop in the carriage and take off all by herself, but then she realized she didn't know her way around the fjords... let alone have the foggiest idea where she was supposed to go.

_Alright, slow down, feisty-pants, now's not the time to be reckless_, Anna reminded herself. _Elsa needs you_.

The princess dashed inside to find her guards seated in the living room.

"Princess Anna, what's wrong?" one asked.

"Something bad happened and Elsa got upset and she flew off!" Anna explained frantically.

The guards traded confused looks.

"She… flew?" one of them repeated.

"Into the sky!" said Anna impatiently.

"I didn't know the queen could fly-"

"It's not important!" snapped Anna. "C'mon, we have to go after her!"

More confused looks. "But… if she's in the air… how are we supposed to get to her?"

"_Stop asking questions and get in the carriage_!"

After yet another eternity, Anna and her guards were in the vehicle and rolling their way over the dirt road.

"Should we return to the palace, Your Highness?" one suggested.

"Yeah, sure," nodded Anna, "Maybe she went back there!"

The ride home was agonizing. Every passing minute was another minute Elsa didn't have her sister when she needed her most. A minute closer to Anna being too late to-

_Nope. Stop it, _Anna ordered herself. _That's not happening_. _Uh uh. _

_The second enemy is yours-_

_Shut up, prophecy! You're wrong!_

It was at least another five eternities before the carriage finally came to a stop. Anna leapt out and sprinted through the gates, arriving in the entrance hall to find Anders standing by the door.

Before so much as gasping for air, the first thing out of Anna's mouth was, "Have you seen Elsa?"

"Yes, she ran inside a short while ago," answered the butler. "It was quite theatric, actually. Is anything the matter?"

"Where is she now?"

"Her bedroom. Why-?" Suddenly, Anders was talking to himself.

Anna skipped up the stairs two-at-a-time. She nearly tripped and broke her neck, but it was worth the precious seconds it saved her. Now all that was left was a mad dash down the bedchambers hallway.

_Please don't let the door be locked oh please oh please oh please!_

Anna reached the doorway, and the sight waiting for her almost made her heart stop. It was… the most _beautiful_ thing she had ever seen.

The door was _completely gone_. The only thing there was empty air and a cracked frame. And that meant Anna had a perfect view of the bedroom's interior. A perfect view of the girl sitting up at the edge of her bed, back turned.

Anna laughed. She couldn't help it; she was so relieved. "Wow, those rebels actually improved something… Elsa, we should totally keep the door like this- y'know, nonexistent. I love it!"

Silence.

Anna found herself shivering. The bedroom was packed to the brim with snow. A good several inches of it was piled on the floor, but the rest of it was hanging in the air, completely still.

Finally, a faint reply. "…Don't pretend to be happy for my sake…"

"Who's pretending?" scoffed Anna. "I'm really, truly glad you're…" Her voice trailed off. "…here," she finished lamely. "Elsa, you scared me." Her voice was shaking again, but not from laughter.

Anna brought her hands to her eyes. She stayed like that in the doorway for a minute. Then she felt arms wrap around her.

"I'm not going anywhere," whispered Elsa. "_Never._"

"Yeah," said Anna. "Yeah, I knew that. I just…" The sentence proved harder to finish than she'd expected.

"…Sorry I ran away again," said Elsa softly. "I didn't think about how you would react."

"Elsa, no, it's fine-" Anna quickly returned the hug. "You were just… taken by surprise, that's all. Do you… want to go back and talk with Mrs. Dale some more-?"

She could feel her sister tense beneath her arms.

"Not if you don't want to!" she hurriedly added.

"_Anna, what are we going to do_?" Now Anna could feel her sister tremble.

Anna pondered the question. Only one answer sprung to mind. She ended the hug and walked towards the layer of snow covering the carpet. "We're going to build a snowman."

When Elsa stayed by the doorway, Anna looked back, seeing her face for the first time since entering the bedroom. Elsa's eyes were red and swollen.

"Can you believe it's been, like, two weeks since everything went down at your coronation, and we _still_ haven't done it yet?" Anna gave a small smile. "C'mon, we can start right now. There's plenty of snow."

Elsa stared. When she remained motionless, Anna took the initiative, dropping to her knees and setting to work piling snow together.

"Come on," she said, "You _know_ how to make a snowman, Elsa. The old-fashioned way, I mean. No powers- that's cheating."

Elsa nodded and wordlessly joined her sister on the carpet. The girls hadn't built a snowman in years, but it came back immediately.

There were no sticks, no coal, no carrots. They were left with three shapeless lumps piled on top of each other. But it didn't matter- Anna still counted this among the best they'd ever built. She couldn't keep herself from grinning.

"I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to do that."

Elsa remained silent and didn't meet her eyes.

"It _is_ a little plain, though…" Anna frowned, thoughtful, and then took her sister by the hand. "Spread out your fingers." Elsa obeyed, allowing Anna to take her palm and press it against the snowman's middle section. Then Anna did likewise with her own hand.

The snowman was left with two crisscrossing handprints over its chest, right in the area where, were it an actual person (albeit a lumpy, overweight one), you would feel its heartbeat.

Anna surveyed their work. "Now it's perfect," she said proudly.

Still, Elsa stayed quiet.

Somehow, with the snowman there, Anna suddenly knew exactly what to do. She took her sister's hand. Elsa allowed Anna to run her own fingers through the gaps in Elsa's, interlocking them.

"Elsa, do you know why I wanted to build a snowman?" asked Anna.

Elsa's voice again sounded like it barely worked. "…'Cause I locked you out."

"No." Anna closed her fingers around the trapped hand. "Elsa, when you flew away today, I was so scared, I didn't know_ what_ you were going to do, and, well, between today and yesterday… I guess we both almost lost each other. And all I could think of just now was how we hadn't built that snowman yet, and… I had to make sure we did because… if we built the snowman, then… then you would _know_… that I don't care what happens, or what you've done, or what you _think_ you've done. I love you _no matter what_. Does… Does that make any sense?"

"Yes, Anna," sniffed her sister. "It does."

The sisters sat there for a while, facing their snowman, hands locked. The snowflakes that had been suspended in midair began gently drifting to the floor.

"We should give it a name," decided Anna. "You need to remember this snowman, Elsa. If you're scared or upset or lonely, you need to think of it, okay? You can't forget _ever_. It needs a name."

Pause. The last few snowflakes reached the floor.

"Emma," said Elsa.

Another pause. Anna nodded. "Okay. It's a snowwoman, then." Another. "You're not, uh, planning on bringing her to life, are you?"

Elsa shook her head.

"Good, good," said Anna. "That might be a little weird because… y'know…" One last pause. "Elsa, I hope you know what you did was an accident, and what Adrian did was _on purpose_!"

The dam burst.

"_Oh God Anna I killed a little girl_!"

There was crying and hugging and that was the extent of the conversation for a while.

Anna waited patiently for silence before saying, "Elsa, you didn't kill _anyone_. You are completely innocent, do you realize that? I mean, you told Adrian _I_ was innocent and _you_ weren't, but that wasn't true. You had it backwards. You've had bad things happen to you, and you handled them the _best you could_. But not me. If you need someone to blame for the eternal winter, blame _me_."

Shock overtook Elsa's face. "Anna, no-"

"Yes, it was totally my fault!" insisted Anna. "You were perfect at your coronation. You had your ice under control, and you even reached out to me, remember? _I_ was the one who screwed up. I let myself get so upset at being alone that I threw myself at the first guy who laid eyes on me, and then when you tried to warn me he was bad news, I shut you out and pushed you and- and- heck, I even yanked off your glove!" Anna closed her eyes and took a breath.

"So I don't want you blaming yourself anymore."

"ANNA, NO!" Her sister recoiled at the outburst. "Anna, you CAN'T live your life thinking that way! I won't let you! It's too much! I will NEVER let you hurt yourself like that!"

It was Anna's turn to cry. "Don't you see that's _exactly_ how _I_ feel about _you_?"

Elsa was disarmed. Match over, Anna won. "Okay, Anna…" She shut her eyes. "You were right before. It was an accident. Nobody's fault."

Silence returned to the bedroom.

"…What are you talking about?" Anna gave a bittersweet laugh. "It was clearly all Hans's fault."

Elsa joined in. "Alright, I can live with _that_."

Eventually, Elsa vanished the snow crowding up her bedroom. But the snowwoman stayed untouched.

* * *

Fritz had hardly slept a wink during his stint as bodyguard, unless you counted the mob punching him unconscious. He had gotten used to spending the night at the queen's bedside, half-awake and listening for any signs of nightmares. Fritz had been more than happy for the extra chance to linger in the queen's presence, of course, but he had to admit making due without sleep had taken its toll. His social skills were lacking enough without him having to use them while in a sleep-deprived haze.

And yet here he was now, lying in a comfortable bed in the middle of the night, wide awake.

Last chance to sleep, he reminded himself. The doctors had said he was good to resume work tomorrow. The bandages were coming off and everything. But Fritz couldn't bring himself to be happy about this. The fact that his head was all better meant the doctors were no longer letting Fritz have any morphine. He wasn't sure why, but Fritz _really wanted_ more morphine.

But then the infirmary door crept open, and an acceptable substitute entered the room.

"Hello, Fritz," Queen Elsa said quietly. "I see you're awake. I hope I haven't disturbed you. I know it's late."

Fritz took a while to respond. He was mentally weighing his options based on whether this was real or yet another dream. You see, in one scenario, he was ready to confess his love for her, but in the other he wasn't because he would face actual consequences for his actions.

"What? No, no, you're fine. You're great, even. Better than great." Fritz was dimly aware he was digging himself deeper, but he carried on talking anyways. "You're amazing. Perfect… What were we talking about again?"

"I've been… Well, I…" Elsa took a deep breath. She seemed to be carefully choosing her words.

Fritz's expectations immediately shot so high that nothing short of Elsa professing her unbearable, total devotion to him could have ever hoped to fulfill them.

"Before, you said it felt like the world was constantly barging in and making bad things happen to you," said the queen. Her eyes met the floor. "How… How did you deal with that?"

Fritz's brain was in full-on panic mode. _Oh my God! OH MY GOD! She views you with something besides casual disdain! She really IS your soul mate!_

Fritz slowly opened his mouth. No sound came out.

_Say something romantic say something romantic_ _say something romantic._

"Well… it's hard to make it through the day when bad things happen all the time," said Fritz, "But… I guess it got a lot easier when I realized there's someone special in my life… Someone I care about so much, I'd brave any hardships to make her happy…"

_Oh goodness, I think you actually nailed it._

"My momma!"

_I hate you._

"Uh, why, are you alright?" He anxiously changed the subject.

Elsa hesitated before answering. "No," she admitted. "I'm not. Fritz, can I ask you to… keep watch over my bedside again? I'm sorry, I know you're still recovering, but… I don't know who else to go to… Anna fell asleep, and I don't want to bother her…"

"Yeah! Of course!" Fritz was instantly on his feet beside the celestial body he was forever doomed to orbit. "It's not a problem at all! But, um, why do you need me? Do you think you might have nightmares again?"

The queen finally met Fritz's eyes. Hers seemed a lot redder than he remembered them.

"Tonight, I will _definitely_ have nightmares."


	17. Not Wearing Gloves

**_Author's Note:_ I'm back, baby! You can all rest easy now. I know life has been so empty without me.**

**_P. S._ It has been pointed out to me that Weaseltown and the Southern Isles have no real connection to each other in the actual movie. I don't know why I just took that for granted here- I guess since Hans and the Duke were both such morally unsavory people, I just lumped them together. Yes, that is a mistake, and no, I am not going to fix it. For the purposes of this fanfic, let's just assume Weaseltown is some subdivision of the Southern Isles (like its capital or something), and the Duke is simply high in the nobility of the country, while the Hans brothers are the actual royalty. Got all that? Great, please continue with your regularly scheduled fanfic reading.**

* * *

The week following the rebellion had been more than enough time for Fritz to get over that silly "crush" he'd supposedly had on the queen. He couldn't believe he'd really deceived himself like that! No, any feelings he may or may not have ever had for the queen were dead and buried by now. Never to resurface.

The queen hardly even crossed his mind anymore, except for practical stuff like guarding her efficiently. Even now, as he stood outside the door to her bathing chambers, the fact that Elsa was just on the other side of a thin slab of wood and her clothes were not didn't even occur to Fritz. It certainly didn't drive the swarm of butterflies in his tummy into a frenzy. And he was only sweating because of the steam rising out from under the doorway.

See, Elsa had started giving warm baths a try, but she was still adjusting, which meant every so often the water would splash her the wrong way and she would let out the most adorable little yelp WHICH ELICITED NO REACTION FROM FRITZ WHATSOEVER thanks to his dizzying levels of self-control.

Fritz wasn't even peeping through the keyhole. No, that would be a disgusting invasion of privacy, and Fritz was too professional for that kind of tomfoolery. Really, the whole idea he'd been harboring of ever getting anywhere with the queen was childish and unrealistic. After all, she was way out of his league, and if it was never happening in a million years, there was no sense torturing himself about it.

Besides, the keyhole was too small. You couldn't make out any detail.

Fritz was broken out of his crystal clean thoughts by the door swinging open and the queen emerging fully clothed alongside a cloud of steam.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"_Fantastic_- I mean, uh, yeah, pretty good." Fritz cleared his throat. "Very, err, regal."

He had complimented her on impulse, but the truth was Fritz _hated_ Queen Elsa's new getup. Ever since that night she'd come to him in the castle infirmary, Elsa had traded in that stunning sky blue dress for a much more conservative outfit: hair up in a knot and a dark violet gown that covered up pretty much everything below the neck. It looked like something a queen in her thirties ought to wear.

The only part of Elsa left visible were her bare hands. The hands weren't unpleasant to the eye, of course- very well manicured, if you were into that sort of thing... NOT THAT IT MATTERED TO FRITZ ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. Elsa could dress however she wanted!

Her bodyguard's gaze probably lingered longer than it should've, but Elsa failed to notice. She wordlessly glided past Fritz down the hallway. After bath time, Elsa was set to head to the dining hall for a breakfast of strawberries, eggs, and coffee, and then attend a council meeting at nine on the dot. (Fritz had memorized every minute detail of Elsa's schedule. So he could guard her efficiently. Obviously.)

Fritz trailed after his queen, congratulating himself on not seizing the opportunity to stare at her rear. He'd come a long way. Yes, even Fritz's most elaborate fantasies had been discarded entirely. He no longer daydreamed about so much as kissing Elsa.

Kissing Elsa. What would that feel like? Probably soft and cold... like ice cream.

_Dang it, quit! _Fritz ordered himself. _Stay strong or you'll drive yourself mad!_

The strained groaning noise he made under his breath was enough to get Elsa to halt her march and turn to stare at him, which shut Fritz up immediately. The queen chose not to comment aloud and instead resumed walking.

This wasn't the first time Fritz's vow of chastity had earned him funny looks, but Fritz was pretty sure Elsa just thought he was constipated, so no big deal.

* * *

There was total silence in the council chamber, but this time it was less "terrified" and more "bored." At nine o'clock exactly, the large double doors finally swung open to allow Queen Elsa to enter the room, followed by a scrawny boy in an ill-fitting guard uniform who looked kind of constipated.

The entrance seemed to evoke no response from the council. No flinching or snapping to attention, just continued bored stares. Elsa didn't exactly look enthusiastic herself; Her shoulders weren't even straight.

For a moment, the silence's hold on the room was unbroken. Then one of the councilmen rose to his feet. "Your Majesty, let me get you a seat." Elsa placed herself in a plain wooden chair.

"Thank you," she said faintly.

More silence.

"So," spoke up the Head of Agriculture, "as you know, we have spent the last several of these emergency meetings discussing the increasing dilemma of the drought. In essence, this dry spell shows no sign of ending anytime soon, and your plan to raise taxes has only worked as a temporary solution. And if I'm not mistaken, the taxation was one of the major rallying points of last week's rebellion incident. Even worse, the latest projections indicate that by this time next month, there won't be enough food to go around. Citizens could very well be driven to even more extreme action.

"Of course," he added, "the real crux of the issue is that it's simply too _hot _for anything to grow. And it's not as if there's some way to _magically_ make this problem go away..." He peered across the table at the monarch.

Elsa bowed her head. "No... There's not."

"Then Your Majesty, I'm afraid we're facing a famine."

The silence over the room switched back from "bored" to "terrified."

Elsa's hands reached her forehead. "Fine. Fine... Weaseltown."

The Head of Agriculture raised a gray eyebrow. "Weaseltown?"

"Weaseltown," Elsa repeated.

* * *

"Weaseltown?" The diplomat gave the queen an incredulous look. "But Your Highness, I thought you'd said-"

"I know what I said!" snapped Elsa. "This is urgent! You have to board the ship as quickly as possible!"

"And you need me to bring back a representative from the Southern Isles?" the diplomat repeated.

Considered the most experienced negotiator in the country, this middle-aged man was one of the handful of staff members permitted to live in the castle. However, his services were rarely called upon, so he'd been caught quite off guard by the queen herself barging into his quarters.

"Yes, whoever will agree to come on short notice," nodded Elsa. "I can't stress the importance of this enough. We _need_ to open trading _now_. Bring back anyone!"

"Anyone?"

"Yes. Well..." Elsa brought her hand to her forehead for about the umpteenth time since the council meeting. "Try not to bring back one of the princes."

"Unless it can't be avoided?"

The hand dug deeper into the forehead.

"Yes. Now get packing."

With that, the queen left the staff chambers and trudged back towards her own living area. Nightmare images were flashing before her eyes ("Great news, Your Highness! The Southern Isles were so enthusiastic to reopen trade that they brought TWELVE representatives! Say hi to Prince Hans's indentical tredecaplet brothers!").

Anna was going to go ballistic when she found out. Just the word "Weaseltown" was enough to make her seethe. Elsa needed to reach her bedroom, lie on the mattress, wait for her headache to go away, and then figure out a way to break this to her sister gently.

"ELSA! Tell me you're done with boring queen stuff for today!"

...Or Anna could ambush her with a hug halfway to the bedchambers.

"Yes, Anna," Elsa said hesitantly. "It, err, wasn't as boring as you think..."

"I bet," smirked Anna. "But I'm sure we can find something less boring to do if we put our minds to it. Kristoff's back to work now that his leg's all better, and Olaf's wandered off somewhere with those kids he befriended, so it's just you and me. Ooh! You wanna head into town? I know it's blazing out, but Kristoff was telling me about this awesome place where-"

"_Anna_," interrupted Elsa. "We've had this conversation before."

"_Ellllllllsaaaaaaa_!" her sister immediately protested. "Come _on_, I'm not gonna get grabbed by a Wight the instant I put my foot out the door!"

"You've seen the reports!" countered Elsa. "People are going missing in the city!"

"Yeah, but we're the queen and princess. It's not like people won't notice if someone tries to nab us."

"This isn't up for discussion," said Elsa, folding her arms. "I already made the mistake of letting you out of my sight when the rebels attacked. It's not happening again."

"Well, that _sucks_!" snapped Anna. "I was just getting used to _not_ being trapped in this castle all the time! Heck, now there's even _less_ to do with all the burned parts roped off!" She gestured towards another hallway behind Elsa's bodyguard, where a team of workers was busy ripping out blackened wood and hammering in new pieces.

"Anna, I'm sorry, but it's only until the end of summer," sighed Elsa. "Pabbie said the prophecy will come to pass by then."

The princess let out a sigh of her own, then met her sister's eyes. "Alright, alright. We can at least do something fun inside, then."

Silence.

"We could... read a book," offered Elsa. Anna made a face. "Okay, forget it."

"Can we at least go out and buy some new paintings soon?" asked Anna. "It's been like a week and the gallery's still empty."

Elsa shook her head. "I'm sorry, but portraits are expensive, and with the cost of repairing the castle topped with food prices rising, it's not going to work out." Elsa took a breath. "Speaking of which... Well, you're not going to like this, Anna, but-"

"Yes, I know, I _said_ I'd cut back on the chocolate fondue!" Anna interrupted, throwing her hands in the air. "Look, Elsa, I _know_ we can find _something_ fun to do! You- You can make us a snow fort whenever you want and _never_ run out of ammo! We could at least screw around with your powers again! I mean, we still don't know what the deal was with you making water that one time!

"Heck, you can _fly_ now! If we're bored, let's just jump out the window and go zooming around!"

Anna had gotten quite enthusiastic halfway through her suggestions, but Elsa jerked her head away like she'd been slapped.

"...Elsa?"

"We've had _this_ conversation before, _too_," Elsa said quietly.

You could see the red pouring into Anna's cheeks (which Fritz saw as a warning sign he ought to take a few steps back and pretend he wasn't eavesdropping).

"Elsa, I am getting _really sick_ of this attitude. It's been a _week_! You have to use your powers _eventually_!"

Elsa's eyes were shut tight. "No, Anna, I... I can control it now. So I _don't_ have to."

"I don't think it's control if you never do it _at all_," huffed Anna. "It sounds more like 'conceal, don't feel.' You know that's a bad thing, right?"

Her sister turned her head so that all Anna could see was that ugly "old lady" bun Elsa wore now. "It's not like that, Anna. I'm not wearing my gloves." She glanced down at her hands, as if double-checking. "And I'm _not_ hiding how I feel. Right now I feel exhausted. I've been trapped in emergency council meetings all week."

Anna placed her hands on her sister's shoulders. "Elsa, I'm worried about you. Is that really all this is? You're just tired?"

Elsa took another breath. "No. I'm... unhappy." Somehow, saying that aloud made it seem more real. Concern immediately crossed Anna's face. "But I think that's understandable given all that's... _happened_. And I don't... I don't know how to make myself feel happy again, Anna."

"Elsa, _using your powers_ makes you happy."

Another, even deeper, breath. "I can't. It... wouldn't be right."

It was at this remark that the red rushed back into Anna's face. "_Why are you being like this_?" she flat-out yelled. "To punish yourself? Do you really think that changes anything? Do you think it's what _she_ would want?"

Anna waited, but there was no reply.

"Elsa, listen to me," she finally said. "That day you thawed Arendelle, we made three promises to each other." As she spoke, Anna held up fingers to punctuate her point. "One: The gates are staying open forever. Two: We are never in any way, shape, or form ever having anything to do with Weaseltown or the Southern Isles ever again. And three: We are _never_ going back to the way we were. _Ever_."

Elsa finally, slowly, opened her eyes. "We're not going back to that, Anna."

"Then promise _again_," ordered Anna. "I want you to vow you won't break your swears. Or, uh, swear you won't break your vows. You know what I mean."

There was a second of hesitation. Then Elsa said, "I promise." The sisters sealed the deal with yet another hug.

"Great, now let's try and get you happy again," said Anna. "Weren't we trying to think up something fun to do before we got sidetracked?"

"Yeah," nodded Elsa. "Any ideas?"

There was an abrupt pause in the conversation.

* * *

Half an hour later, in the castle library:

"'_No, I'll look first,' she said, 'and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later_."

Pause. Anna looked up from the text.

"Elsa, that was the funny part."

"What? Oh!" Her sister proceeded to give the saddest excuse for a laugh Anna had ever heard.

"Look, if you don't want to read-"

"I don't _get_ this book!" groaned Elsa. "It doesn't seem like it's even a story! It's just random stuff happening!"

"_But that's why it's funny_!"

"Well, I guess I'm just not in the mood. I'm tired, Anna. I need to get to bed." Elsa raised her head off her sister's lap and made for the door.

"Are you sure?" frowned Anna, shutting the book reluctantly. "It's pretty early. I mean, if you don't like this author, we could try something by S. Morgenstern-"

"I'm sure," said Elsa. "Good night."

"Night."

Elsa exited through the library door, followed by her bodyguard.

Reading had been a terrible idea and Elsa knew it. Being confined to the same building for over a decade meant Anna had long ago exhausted the library's stock (or at least all the "good ones," as she claimed). And books had lost their appeal to Elsa after their parents changed "reading for fun" into "reading to see if you can get through the sad or scary parts without making ice."

Elsa was brought out of her thoughts by her guard suddenly speaking.

"Um, Your Highness, I don't mean to intrude or anything," gulped Fritz, "but why didn't you tell your sister about... y'know... about Weaseltown? I mean, if you told her it's preferable to mass starvation, I'm sure she'd understand."

The queen let out a long, weary sigh. "There was an... incident with someone from the Southern Isles. It was really only one person, but Anna holds a grudge against their entire government, and I promised her we wouldn't do business with them again. I'm going to tell her, I just... need to find the right way to do it."

"Oh, um, okay. Forget I said anything..."

Of course, Elsa had left out the _real_ reason she'd held off on telling Anna. Namely, that it would beg the question, "Why can't you just use your powers to end the drought?" And Elsa wasn't sure she was ready to answer that.

The route to the bedroom was longer than usual seeing as Elsa had to navigate around all the portions of the castle blocked off due to fire damage. She was getting really tired of that, but the castle had been old and repairing it was proving to be an extremely long, expensive endeavor.

It was as she was looking for a route around a charred staircase that Elsa crossed paths with her butler.

"Oh, Anders, there you are," said Elsa. "How's the hiring of new staff coming along?"

"Circuitously," Anders answered dryly. "All our work has been set back to square one thanks to our friend the Admiral, and the hiring process has been no more expedient the second time around."

"I've been thinking, and I decided we need more guards," said Elsa. "Did you know people have been disappearing in town?"

"Well, you've already quadrupled the size of the guard," Anders said flatly, "but why quit when you're ahead?"

"And why doesn't Anna have a bodyguard yet?" Elsa continued, ignoring him.

"Because I don't envy the man tasked with keeping pace with her twenty-four seven, and I wanted to delay the suffering for as long as possible."

The queen gave him a stern glare.

"It's on the to-do list!" Anders huffed. "I _said_ hiring staff was circuitous!"

"Well, if that's all you have to say, I really need to get to bed..." Elsa started to resume her walk.

"Queen Elsa, wait!" Anders suddenly called out. Elsa paused and turned back around. "I seem to recall saying something to you once about not hiding with your tail between your legs."

Elsa's eyebrows creased. "I'm _not_ hiding from _anything_."

"Yes, yes, I make no claim to understand the inner workings of the teenage mind," said Anders. "I don't know what happened or why you've been acting so differently following the rebellion. But have you considered what the citizens of Arendelle might think?"

"Think about _what_?" demanded Elsa.

"About how a group of people just tried to overthrow the queen because of her magic, and now the queen is refusing to use her powers at all."

Elsa let out another exasperated sigh. "It's... more complicated than that."

"Well, I wouldn't know," Anders said as he moved to walk away. "Since it doesn't seem you're planning on telling me what happened..."

The butler vanished down the hallway, but not before giving Fritz a glare of disapproval (Anders was on to him).

For a moment, Elsa stood in the hallway, staring off into space. Then she made for her bedroom. That headache hadn't diminished in the slightest.

Elsa really needed to throw herself under the covers and nod off, but she ended up lingering by the windowsill. This was a new bedroom, but it still stirred up old memories. A windowsill had been the first thing Elsa had ever accidentally frozen after that awful night she almost lost Anna.

But back in the present, the contact of bare skin to the surface did nothing. For years, Elsa would've given anything for that, but now she almost wished the ice would jump out of her fingertips again without her having to tell it to. Even when it had frightened her, Elsa had to admit making the ice had always given her a pleasant little rush...

But then Elsa's gaze moved to the snowwoman still sitting in the middle of the room (a flurry cloud keeping it from melting). How could she have just thought something so horrible?

"Fritz," Elsa spoke up, "could you stay by my beside again?"

For some reason, the command seemed to make her bodyguard shift uncomfortably. Elsa swore sometimes there was no making heads or tails of that boy.

"Are you sure, Your Majesty?" he frowned. "You seemed like you were sleeping a lot better these last two nights."

"I'm sure, Fritz."

Without another word, Elsa went to change into some pyjamas (of the regular cloth variety, of course), and Fritz seated himself in the chair they'd started leaving at her bedside.

Elsa emerged with her hair down and wearing scarlet-colored silk. "Are you alright?" She blinked, confused. "You seem a bit... sweaty."

"Must be the heatwave," answered Fritz, his voice raising in pitch.

* * *

Arendelle was one of those places north enough that it was pretty much daylight until like three in the morning, so Fritz could make out every detail of the sleeping Elsa's face. Of course, he was only staring at her because he was on the lookout for signs of nightmares. It wasn't like he enjoyed it or anything.

Fritz watched intently as a little breath escaped Elsa's lips. It smelled minty. He wondered if that was because she'd just brushed her teeth or if her powers made it that way naturally.

_Platonic_, Fritz chanted to himself. _You feel _so _platonic towards her. Platonic platonic platonic. _

Fritz tried to remind himself why he'd sworn off his obsession with Elsa in the first place, hoping to regain some of that initial burst of motivation. It had been shortly after the queen stopped using her powers. Fritz had no clue why she'd done that exactly, but he was guessing the rebels setting fire to her home might have been a contributing factor. Elsa had seemed okay that first time she visited him in the infirmary, though... but the second time, she'd been worried about nightmares.

And Elsa had been absolutely right. The nightmares had been _horrible_. She never told Fritz what they were about, of course, but they were at least bad enough to keep her from sleeping at all the first couple nights.

Sheesh, that girl was in need of a psychiatrist, though Fritz wasn't sure how many of those were trained to deal with the "magical powers" aspect of the whole thing.

Fritz hated to see Elsa so unhappy. That was why he'd promised himself he'd quit having a crush on her; He'd been so self-centered, all he could think about was dating her when she clearly needed emotional support! And the fact that he violated his oath about two seconds after making it didn't mean it wasn't still a nice gesture!

But even when scoring with her wasn't the ulterior motive behind his every action, Fritz was afraid he still failed to comfort Elsa much. He was still a socially-impaired screw-up, after all, and he'd ended up mostly keeping quiet and banking on her sister figuring out the right thing to say to make Elsa happy again.

The problem was that hadn't happened yet, and Elsa had grown even more withdrawn than usual. Fritz could hardly stand it. _Himself _having a terrible life was one thing, but Elsa was too smart and pretty and perfect. She definitely didn't deserve one.

"Ohhhh..."

Fritz's spacing out was ended by Elsa rolling over under her covers and making a soft moaning noise. He immediately had a very specific idea of what she might be dreaming about.

_Cut that out!_ Fritz scolded himself. _Not everyone's mind is as debauched as yours. She could be dreaming about _anything. _Actually, maybe she's having another nightmare!_

He quickly double-checked her face. Elsa didn't _look_ like she was having a nightmare... In fact, there was actually a hint of a smile on her mouth. Now _there_ was something Fritz hadn't seen in a long time...

Suddenly, Fritz found himself shivering. Wait, hadn't he been sweaty a second ago? Oh no.

Fritz was about to wake Elsa up, but then something in the air caught his eye; It was snow, and it was drifting gently to the ground from a few feet above Elsa's head. A little ring of it was forming around the foot of the bed, too.

Elsa shifted in her sleep again. Yeah, she was definitely smiling. She must've been having a _good_ dream for once. Seeing Elsa happy, even if it was only while she was unconscious, well... it felt like a weight had been lifted off Fritz's shoulders.

_You idiot_. It was all so clear to him now. _That's why your vow to stop having a crush on her failed so miserably. It's not something you can flip on and off like a switch. You... you really love her._

_Heck, maybe that's been the answer all along. Maybe if you just tell her how you feel, it'll make her happy and everything will be okay again!_

Fritz took a deep breath, gathering his resolve. _I'm really gonna do it this time. I'm gonna wake her up and say, 'Queen Elsa, I-'_

"_FRITZ_!"

But in the span of a second, Elsa's eyes opened up of their own accord and darted from her bodyguard to the snow accumulating on the bed. She definitely wasn't smiling anymore.

"I told you to wake me if I started using my powers!" Elsa snapped, flinging herself out of the covers.

"No!" squeaked the boy, throwing his hands in front of his face like he thought she might sock him. "You said to wake you if you were having a nightmare! You were having a _good_ dream, uh, weren't you?"

Elsa blinked twice. His reply seemed to have disarmed her.

"I mean, you were only making snowfall, right?" Fritz blathered. "It seemed harmless enough-"

"Just... just leave," Elsa interrupted, bringing a hand over her eyes. "I want to be alone."

"Yeah... Yeah, okay, whatever you think is best..." Fritz bowed his head and slinked out of the room like a puppy who'd just been told it was a bad dog.

_Great,_ he thought as he crossed the still-empty door frame. _Not even dating her, and you were kicked out of the bedroom..._

* * *

Now Elsa sat alone in bed, taking shallow breaths. She shouldn't have taken out her frustration on the poor kid. Fritz hadn't been wrong.

She'd been dreaming about building the ice palace.

Elsa looked around her bedroom, from the empty frame that once housed a mirror to the cracked doorway, and then to the white fluff coating her bedsheets. Elsa had halted the snowfall the instant she'd opened her eyes, but even that brief release was causing some intangible place inside her to ache longingly.

Elsa hated not using her powers. Hated the smug looks on the councilmen's faces the first day she'd walked in with no ice-dress and no ice-throne. Hated that tinge of disappointment undercutting every conversation with Anna. Hated how... how _mute__d _everything felt when she was constantly restraining herself.

Elsa's eyes fell on the snowwoman still in its familiar spot on the floor. She lifted her hands, the ice feeling like it might any minute now erupt like a volcano.

"Sorry, Emma..."

Dang it, she'd really thought she was all cried out on that particular topic.

* * *

Meanwhile, Fritz was crying, too, in light of what he considered a new personal low. He'd wound up in the kitchens, sobbing softly to himself and eating a big bowl of mint ice cream.


	18. Spontaneous Renovation

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"_Shh_... _Our secret_..."

Anna woke up with that uncanny feeling that there was something extremely important she ought to remember. Unfortunately, she was in that state halfway between the sleeping and waking worlds where stray thoughts waft in and out of your head at their own leisure. By the time Anna decided to re-pull the covers over herself and return to sleep, her brain had already moved on to more pressing thoughts, such as _zzzzzzzz_...

But Anna's efforts to drift back asleep failed when her snoring was overtaken by shivering. Oh come on, she thought hazily, drawing the blankets tighter over herself. She hated trying to sleep when it was freezing cold. You'd think it wouldn't be a problem in the middle of summer.

Wait.

"Gah!" Anna hurled herself out of the covers and opened her eyes. Her entire line of sight was filled with sky blue and white. It was everywhere; on the walls, over the ceiling, even a blanket of frost over her, well, blanket. For a second, Anna thought she was back in the Ice Palace.

But then the disorientation wore off and Anna started making out features that were suspiciously similar to the furniture in her bedroom, only... _icier_. This wasn't jagged, out-of-control ice, mind you. No, there was actually a careful level of detail to it. Like how the bookshelf had ice over all the wooden parts, but the books themselves were untouched. Or how the dusty old clock on the wall had frost that traced even its tiniest roman numerals exactly.

Anna simultaneously felt extremely relieved and completely panicked. Relieved because, hey, it was a safe bet Elsa was using her powers again. Panicked because OH GOD LOOK OUT THE WINDOW WAS THAT SNOW?

The princess's bedroom window normally held a pleasant view of the castle grounds, for the record, complete with trees _not _dusted with white fluff.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Anna had a sinking feeling she was going to have to find Kristoff and climb a mountain and confront her sister and try to bring her back to her senses via duet _all over again_.

Anna made a valiant leap out of bed and charged for the door. But she didn't make it to the door. She made it to her butt, which skidded across the carpet and smashed into the bookcase, sending all the thickest doorstoppers down on her head. "Ow."

Yeah, the floor was ice, too.

After excavating herself, Anna made for the door more carefully and successfully reached the bedchambers hallway. It was painted in the same ice as Anna's bedroom, and there were even added touches like suits of ice-armor lining the walls that definitely hadn't been there last night.

Anna shivered again. _Everything's fine, everything's fine,_ she assured herself. _You've just gotta make it to Elsa's room without slipping, and then she'll explain what the deal is with freezing our house and thaw the fjords again. Easy as pie._

The princess carefully navigated towards Elsa's doorway, which was still missing its door, though the frame itself had apparently been "repaired" by ice filling in the cracks. The rest of the bedroom was equally icy (Anna was getting the idea the entire castle was like that now). There was an elaborate snowflake design over the bed and carpet and a little circular platform for their snowwoman to rest on.

Anna's gaze lingered on the mirror above Elsa's bed-stand. The empty frame had been filled by what appeared to be glass, but if she had to guess, Anna would say it was actually very smooth ice. Her reflection stared back at her, looking just as dazed and confused as the real deal.

The only thing missing from the bedroom was Elsa herself.

"Elsa?" Anna called out to the empty room. She knew it was a dumb thing to do. There was clearly nobody there to answer.

"Princess Anna?"

"Agh!" Anna spun around to find a very elderly and very tired-looking man standing behind her. She had to suppress a giggle. For once, Anders wasn't in a crisp suit but a nightgown complete with pointed nightcap on his head. And yet the butler was still trying his darnedest to stand up straight and appear dignified.

Then again, Anna wasn't in a position to throw stones. Her hair currently looked like spaghetti that's been given to a three-year-old, and Anna's own nightgown was flimsy enough to leave her perpetually shivering.

"Anders, what are you doing here?" she asked.

The butler looked from Anna to the copious amounts of frost covering everything else in sight. "Well," he said flatly, "I couldn't help but notice the castle is caked in decidedly more ice than before I went to bed. Granted I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I assumed Queen Elsa had a hand in this."

"Oh. Right. Well, she's not in her bedroom," said Anna. "I guess you haven't seen her?"

Anders shook his head. "If it's any consolation, the snow doesn't extend past the castle borders, so our dear queen at least had enough sense not to freeze all of Arendelle again."

Anna let out a big sigh of relief. Not that she'd, uh, ever doubted her sister.

"In fact, this whole business strikes me as planned rather than an act of passion," added Anders, kneeling to examine the tiny little chainmail loops on one of the ice-armors. "Maybe when we find her, the queen actually _won't_ be emotionally turbulent."

"Yeah, I hope so," said Anna. "Come on, we'd better go look for her..."

The pair attempted to traverse the staircase without slipping. Anna slid herself down in a matter of seconds, but Anders was more cautious; Falling and hurting yourself is quite a different experience for a wrinkled old man than a sprightly teenage girl. But Anders eventually managed it by gripping the hand rail with both hands and then inching down a step at a time. Anna rolled her eyes impatiently.

Even sitting still for a minute was long enough to let Anna's thoughts wander to bad places, like prophecies about the second enemy and the frantic attempts to find Elsa the _last time_ she'd run away...

_Stop it. It's not like that this time,_ Anna told herself. _Everything's gonna be fine. Elsa's using her powers, so she's probably feeling better, and there's no way she'd run off again. She's probably just...in the dining hall eating breakfast._

* * *

Elsa was not in the dining hall eating breakfast. Or in the throne room. Or out on the balcony. What _was_ in those places, however, was the same coating of ice as in the bedchambers, as well as plenty of staff members who had no clue where the queen might be and were just as shocked as Anna and Anders at waking up to discover they were now living in a glorified igloo.

The only place mostly untouched by the castle's new, frosty coating was the kitchens, which was fortunate because it meant there was still warm food available. But other than the cooks serving breakfast out of necessity, the palace staff had pretty much halted all routine in favor of marveling at the castle's spontaneous renovations.

Anders was just as happy as the next guy to see that Queen Elsa was using her powers again and "embracing her individuality" or whatever kids called it these days, but he didn't think it was worth the cost of sending the castle into total anarchy. He should've known this would happen. The ice-towel had been a _warning sign_! First it's ice-dresses and ice-towels, and the next thing you know, the whole castle is ice and he's out of a job because the queen's decided to replace the staff with snowmen _and Anders couldn't think like that! It was too horrible!_

Well, he wasn't having it! And if a tired and overworked butler had to singlehandedly restore order, then so be it! As Chief of Staff, Anders bravely took it upon himself to get into several shouting matches with people about how he didn't care if they woke up to find the palace transported to the middle of the _Arctic Circle_, they were doing their job _right now_ or they were FIRED!

He and the princess even found one of the guards fast asleep at a kitchen table with his face buried in a gigantic bowl of ice cream. Disgusting. The boy was awoken through nothing but the sheer force of the disapproving glare Anders gave him.

The first thing the guard saw upon opening his eyes was the face of an elderly man who could easily pass as God fixing to hurl lightning at a sinner. He let out a girlish shriek and tumbled out of his chair (The chair was covered in ice, too).

"Wait a minute, you're Elsa's bodyguard!' realized Anna. "Where is she? Why aren't you guarding her?"

"I don't know! I don't know anything!" Fritz yelped as he frantically tried (and failed) to wipe dried ice cream off his mouth. "The queen told me to go away and you can't fire me for doing what the queen said wait is it just me or is everything covered in ice?"

"Fine, come help us look for her," said Anna, grabbing his arm. "You follow her around all the time-"

"Only when I'm on duty, I swear!"

"-so you must know where she likes to hang out. Come on, we'll explain as we go..."

Great. So now they had to wait for this scatterbrained buffoon to clean ice cream off himself and change clothes. Anders didn't trust the Gudmund kid. His job required him to be in the queen's presence twenty-four-seven, even in private, and he was a teenage boy, and Queen Elsa was a teenage girl, and one plus one equals two.

Anders and Anna waited for the boy outside the staff chambers entrance, both of them now in clothes they hadn't slept in. Anders sat stone-still, but Anna paced back and forth restlessly (though it was pretty wobbly pacing thanks to the ice-floor).

"Princess Anna, I can't help but notice the queen has been acting... peculiar lately, even before today's events," said Anders. "I imagine it has something to do with the prophecy involving the monster coming to kill her, but has anything... _else_ happened?"

Anna's pacing came to an abrupt stop. "Elsa really really _really_ doesn't want me to tell anyone," she admitted.

The old butler let out a sigh. "Princess Anna, I know it's not always as apparent, but I care about the queen's well-being just as much as you. We all do."

Anna failed to meet his eyes. For a second, it looked like she might say something, but then the staff chambers door swung open and Fritz emerged looking marginally more presentable.

"Okay, so Elsa likes to go to the library to be alone, and if she's bored she walks around the courtyard, and from twelve to one she visits with citizens by the front gates, except on Fridays when she gets her nails done," said Fritz. "Just, uh, off the top of my head."

When the queen failed to appear in any of these places, Fritz produced another dozen locations off the top of his head.

The first eleven proved just as fruitless, but at the twelfth, they actually _did_ find Elsa. Sort of. It wasn't really Elsa herself so much as a gigantic ice statue of her resting a couple yards outside the castle gates. And there was an Anna statue right next to it, which was flattering in a weird way.

Naturally, the palace's transformation had drawn a sizable crowd of citizens, most of them flocking around the statues. The castle's exterior was even more layered in ice than its interior, which made for a spectacular view, even from a distance.

Despite Anders's distaste for the castle's new "cover everything in frozen water" artistic direction, he did reluctantly concede that the gigantic statues were a good idea. They had welcoming facial expressions that made the royal sisters seem authoritative without quite coming off as egotistical dictators. Anders thought back to the conversation he'd had with Elsa the previous day. He was glad to see she'd dealt with the issue in her own unorthodox way.

He just wished her way hadn't involved freezing the whole castle, that was all. Sudden, drastic change and finicky old men didn't agree with each other.

When it became clear that Elsa wasn't hiding in the crowd, the trio of Anna, Anders, and Fritz moved on towards the palace grounds. Like Anders had said, the snow extended only a few yards out from the castle, and it was somehow unmelted despite the humid outdoor air. They didn't find the queen here, either, but they did find a certain animated snowman.

"Hey, guys!" Olaf greeted, glancing away from the snowball fight he was currently participating in with the group of youngsters he'd befriended. Dropping his guard earned Olaf a snowball to the face (which made it look like he had some sort of tumor). "You were wrong about the whole 'melting' thing. It's the middle of summer and there's plenty of snow here."

"I'm pretty sure Queen Elsa did that," said Fritz (He was used to the magical talking snowman by now. When you lived in Elsa's constant presence, you learned to roll with these things).

"_Ohhhhhhhh_..." It took a few seconds, but you could see the understanding cross Olaf's coal-eyes. "That _would_ make sense..."

"Olaf, we're looking for Elsa," Anna told him. "Do you know where she is?"

The snowman pondered this for a moment. Then a bright-eyed smile crossed his doughy face. "Ooh! Ooh! I saw her earlier today!"

All three humans present jerked in surprise.

"Where? Where?" asked Anna.

Olaf took another moment to ponder. "I don't remember," he said. "But I saw her!" And with that, he got distracted by the ongoing snowball fight and ran off.

The trio let out simultaneous groans.

"Well, this at least proves she hasn't dropped off the face of the earth," said Anders. "But I suppose at this point we ought to abandon all hope of stumbling across some overly convenient way to locate her."

"I know where the queen is."

The trio spun around to find a small group of muscular, stubble-chinned men marching single-file away from the castle gates. They were carrying hammers, planks of wood, and other construction equipment.

"Oh! Aren't you guys the construction workers who were fixing the burned parts of the castle?" remembered Anna.

"Well, not anymore," the head worker huffed. "The queen finished the whole job herself with those fancy-shmancy magic powers of hers. Ugh, I don't know why she even bothered with us in the first place! I mean, she payed us for what we finished so far, but still.

"Do you have _any idea_ how hard it is to find work refurbishing classic European architecture nowadays? And this gig was gonna get us _so much_ cash... Heck, we hadn't taken up a job this big since the turret fell off that one castle down in Corona! Apparently there was a zany escapade involving some horse chasing a bag of apples."

"Hold up," said Anna. "Is _that_ why Elsa made the castle all icey? To fix the burned parts?"

"You can ask her yourself. We saw her go up there." The man pointed upwards towards the very tip of Arendelle castle, and all of a sudden Anna realized why they'd been unable to find Elsa until now.

The place the worker was pointing to hadn't been there before. It was a whole new tower jutting off the peak of the palace, made purely of ice.

"Oh, I remember now! She's in that ice-tower!" Olaf helpfully called out.

* * *

When she first discovered the castle's icy-makeover, Anna had been pretty weirded out, but she was starting to get an idea what Elsa had been thinking. Everybody in that crowd outside had been going on about how amazing and impressive the castle's transformation was, but as far as Anna had heard, nobody had breathed the words "remember," "that," "rebellion," "last," and "week" in that order.

In fact, Elsa had _literally_ covered up the damage from the rebels. Anna was pretty sure there was still plenty of burnt wood hiding beneath all the frozen walls and floors and ceilings, but you couldn't see it even if you examined the ice really thoroughly.

Anna, Anders, and Fritz reached the spot the out-of-work workers had directed them to. They hadn't noticed on their first several searches of the castle, but this hall, which had received some of the worst fire damage, now contained a hollowed-out wall with an icy staircase that definitely hadn't been there last night.

She wasn't nearly as anal about it as Anders, but Anna had to admit there was something extremely disorienting about having the place you'd lived your entire life completely change overnight without warning. Now that she thought about it, though, Anna decided she didn't mind. She'd honestly been getting pretty sick of the old version of the castle. The only time she'd ever really been away from it, she'd been too busy running from wolves and scaling mountains and freezing to death to appreciate it.

So the change was welcome, really. But Anna would have appreciated it if the _floor_ hadn't been covered in ice, too. She'd nearly slipped and face-planted, like, thirty-seven times- whoops, make that thrity-eight.

"Are you okay?" Fritz impulsively tried to catch the princess, but he was even less graceful than her (Anna hadn't thought that was possible) and ended up tumbling to the ground in a spectacular fashion. "Ow, ow... Um, don't worry, I only hit my face..."

"Let's hurry up and get to the tower, okay?" sighed Anna, sliding herself towards the stairs. "The sooner we find Elsa, the sooner we can get this sorted out..."

There was a minimum of further antics until the trio was traversing the ice-staircase, but going upstairs when every step is slick is not as easy as it sounds, so it was pretty slow-going.

"By 'sorted out,' I hope you meant 'beg the queen to change the castle back,'" grumbled Anders.

"What? No!" snapped Anna. "First off, living in an ice palace is starting to grow on me-"

"Careful, you almost slipped again. Are you shooting for forty?"

"-and second off, Elsa got pretty defensive the last time I tried to make her leave an ice palace, and I only did it then because she froze Arendelle and ran away from home! She hasn't done that stuff this time!"

"Does she make ice castles often, then?" spoke up Fritz.

"No, but I have a feeling it's becoming a habit," Anders said dryly.

Anna gave him a dirty look. "We're almost to the top of the stairs, and if Elsa's been all alone up there all this time, she's probably still a teeny bit upset. So I want everyone to be _nice_, and if you have any _complaints_ to give her, voice them _nicely_."

"Why are you looking at _me_?" muttered Anders.

With that said, the group emerged at the top of the ice-tower. The large, round room they arrived in didn't have a stone foundation to build over, meaning unlike the rest of the castle, it looked like it was lifted directly off the North Mountain's palace. There was even a large balcony directly across from the stairs that was nearly identical to the original Ice Palace's, only its view was of the sprawling city surrounding Arendelle castle.

But Anna hardly noticed any of that. In her eyes, the only sight in the room was the pale woman curled up against a wall, still in her scarlet nightgown, eyes shut.

"_Elsa_!" The princess made a bee-line for her sister and gently shook her shoulders. Anders and Fritz held back by the head of the stairs- It was an unspoken rule among the palace staff to never intrude on "sisterly moments."

"...Anna?" The queen slowly opened her eyes and rubbed the sleep out. "Oh, sorry, I must've dozed off... I, err, stayed up a little late last night."

"Yeah, I guess you were busy, huh?" grinned Anna.

A matching smile spread over her sister's face. "Do... Do you like it?" She gestured to their surroundings.

Another unspoken rule: When your loved one puts on a big smile and asks if you like something they made, you _have_ to answer in the affirmative, preferably with great enthusiasm.

"Are you kidding? I _love_ it!"

"And you don't think the statues were too much?"

"Of course not! How did you know I've always wanted a giant statue of myself?"

"Good, good, I'm glad you like it." Elsa gave her sister a hug.

"I like it, too!" Fritz tried to say, but he failed to catch the queen's attention.

"Pardon, Your Highnesses," spoke up Anders. "Rare as it is that I'm the lone dissenting voice, am I the _only one_ who's considered that living in a building made of ice is a spectacularly _bad idea_ from a _practical_ standpoint?"

"What do you mean?" asked Elsa, rising to her feet. "I was careful not to touch places like the kitchens where the ice could interfere with anything."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, in our search for you, the three of us nearly broke our necks a collective five hundred times."

At her butler's words, Elsa looked downwards. Her eyes widened. "Oh. OH! I am _so sorry_!" she gasped. "I completely forgot ice is slippery!"

Anders's facial expression was a smart remark all on its own.

"I've, um, gotten to the point where I don't really slip on ice if I don't want to," explained Elsa, blushing. "It's part of my powers. Here, I can fix this..."

With a quick stomp of her foot, Elsa sent a shockwave through the entire castle that replaced all the ice on the floor with a strange, new substance. It seemed to be snow woven into a carpet-like shape (Yes, Elsa's fabric-making power was good for more than just dresses).

"Any other problems?" she asked.

Anders was frantically racking his brain for some other really good reason to change the castle back, but he was having trouble coming up with anything more articulate than, "But I don't WANT to live in an ice palace! Waaaaaah!" so he kept his mouth shut.

"It _is_ a little cold in here," said Anna.

"Well, I _think_ I can regulate the temperature in the castle," said Elsa. "I've been experimenting with my powers, and I'm pretty sure if I focus on it, I can stop it from getting too cold without melting the ice. And once I've got that going, it should stay that way. My power usually does what I tell it to automatically even if I'm not always thinking about it, like Olaf's flurry cloud. That's how I got all the ice in the rooms to be so detailed without paying attention to every little thing."

"We'll figure it out later," shrugged Anna. "It'll be worth it. I mean, living in an ice palace is gonna be _so awesome_!"

Anders rubbed his forehead. "You're keeping the castle this way forever, aren't you?" Both sisters nodded. "Wonderful. Well, if this is the norm from now on, then I'm off to have some choice words with certain staff members. Most of them seem to have decided the frozen castle makes today a _holiday_." He spat the word the way one might spit "_orphanage burning_" or "_puppy murder_." Then the butler slinked away down the (now carpeted) staircase and vanished from sight.

Now the sisters were alone. Well, Fritz was with them, but they'd honestly forgotten about him.

"Hey, Elsa," said Anna. "I'm glad you're feeling better, but I've gotta ask... _why_? I mean, I like what you did to the castle, and I _really_ like that you're using your powers again, but yesterday, you seemed like you..." She bowed her head. "...weren't about to get any better."

Elsa took a breath before replying. "You were right, Anna. Using my powers made me happy again. I'd... remembered my time on the North Mountain, and how I really let my powers loose after holding back for so long... how I built the palace and Olaf... and... honestly, that was the happiest I'd felt in years. I don't think I ever _really_ wanted to stop using my powers. I just... wanted to feel like _that_ again..."

There was more hugging. Fritz thought staring intently at the sisters maybe violated that unspoken rule, but he couldn't for the life of him bring himself to look away.

"There were other reasons, too," continued Elsa. "I wanted to undo some of the damage from the rebellion, for one thing. And..." She closed her eyes. "...I guess I needed to prove to myself that I could still use my powers without holding back and not... hurt anything. What... _happened_... happened _before_ I learned control."

Fritz had no clue what that meant, but something about the way Elsa said it so gravely gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Fortunately, Anna sensed the heaviness and immediately said, "Hey, let's go do something fun. Y'know, to make up for yesterday." Elsa nodded and then Anna ran off down the stairs. The queen was about to follow her, but she hesitated.

This created a brief window of time where the queen and her bodyguard were alone together. Elsa glanced over at Fritz, remembering his existence for the first time that day. Then her eyes noticed where his were going.

"Are... Are you staring at my-"

"What? _No_, I'd _never_-"

"-pyjamas? Thanks for reminding me. I almost forgot!"

There was a wave of magic over her entire body, and when it faded, Elsa was back in her famous ice-dress. She followed after her sister too quickly to notice that she'd just given Fritz an aneurism.

The boy could handle Elsa. He could handle scarlet pyjamas. And he could handle the ice-dress. He just couldn't handle them all at once.

* * *

Several hours later. Nightfall. Voices just outside the queen's room.

"Go to the staff chambers, Fritz. Get some rest in a proper bed for once. I don't think nightmares are going to be a problem for me anymore."

Queen Elsa entered her newly ice-refurbished bedroom, pleasantly oblivious to the crushing disappointment on her bodyguard's face as he left down the hallway.

The queen stood motionless in the center of the room. An onlooker would have thought she was alone.

"...I should've told Anna about you," Elsa suddenly said. "I'm keeping too much from her."

"_Shh_... _Our secret_..."


	19. Lies, Rumors, and Paranoia

Hot. Much too hot out. He dragged himself towards his cave, limping. Shouldn't be this hot. Heat made his bones ache. He neared the cave's mouth, grass withering and browning as his feet brushed it.

Cave. Home. Drafty. Cold in here. Like her.

The Wight scooted some old meatless bones out of the way and threw himself on the large pile of hay covering a fragment of the damp cave floor. He let himself collapse, going nearly limp. Then, almost struggling, he lifted his head to gaze at something lying beside him: Another, much smaller pile of hay.

Empty. A bed with no one to sleep in it.

"We'll make it cold again," he whispered to the little hay pile. "We'll fix this. You and me."

_Say her name. So you don't forget._

"Elsa," he murmured, his eyelids drooping. "Elsa Elsa Elsa Elsa Elsa..." He almost let himself nod off. But then he caught something out of the corner of his eye.

The portrait. His enemy.

_Worst enemy_, said a voice in his head. _Kill her._

_No, don't kill her!_ said another.

_Kiss her._

_Hurt her._

_Love her._

_Take her._

And then there were too many voices and the Wight clutched his temples, moaning.

_Kill her. Cut her. She's a liar. Don't kill her. Elsa will see it. Make her see it. Kill her. Make Elsa kill her. Liar. Hungry. Hurt her. She's telling the truth. _Hungry_. Elsa will see it. Kill her. _**Hungry**_. Eat her. Steal her. _**HUNGRY**_. Cut her. Kill __**HUNGRY**__. _

One voice overtaking the others. The Wight reluctantly pulled himself to his feet. "Hun... gry..."

_No, don't do that,_ said a voice. _Killing is wro**HUNGRY**_.

_You'll die if you don't eat,_ said another.

_**HUNGRY**. _

_Maybe we _should_ die._

_**HUNGRY**. _

_Elsa Elsa Elsa Elsa. Stay alive for Elsa. _

He stumbled towards the cave entrance. Back into the heat. _Hurts. The sun hurts__**HUNGRY**__. _

And then the Wight froze. Eyes were staring at him. Not from above him... or below him... or any direction that really existed. It was near. Or far. It didn't matter to It. It saw him. It _knew_.

_It's onto us. It knows about Elsa. _

He was running out of time. No more lounging around the cave trying to come up with a new plan. Spending too much time in one place was how you get discovered. It meant people following the trail of bodies and turning up at your doorstep one day with torches, and if the Wight didn't like sunlight, he _really_ didn't like torches.

And if It had discovered him, the Wight might not even have time to eat. _**HUNGRY**__. _Okay, maybe he could stop for food on the way. One step at a time, the Wight ventured into the sun. Ignore the pain. Go towards Elsa. Go towards Elsa. If he could make it to Elsa, everything would be alright.

The Wight froze again. From the outside of his cave, he had a clear view of Elsa's home off in the distance, between the line of trees. Ice everywhere. The whole castle was covered in it.

Now wasn't that interesting? Elsa wasn't stupid. She must have _known_ by now. Adrian's attack must have left her _curious_. She must have wondered _why_ this man would do what he'd done. And here Elsa was, using her powers anyways.

A grin spread itself across the Wight's face, the skin stretched tightly over his cheeks.

"Good girl."

* * *

_Clang! Clang! Clang!_

Today's agenda called for more whacking a frozen lake with pickaxes. The life of an ice harvester is not a varied one. Normally, the big team of hairy muscle-bound mountain men would've moved onto the next lake by now, but this one had recently been frozen _again_ on top of the _first_ re-freezing.

"He's down there somewhere," one of the harvesters remarked, gazing at the ice beneath his feet.

"Who?" asked another.

"Adrian," answered the first one. "Haven't you heard? Dude went crazy. They say he was the leader of that rebellion last week. Drowned himself right in this lake."

"Yeah, and then the queen froze it _again_, right on top of him!" added another one, laughing. "And that was _after_ she froze her entire castle! Man, call me crazy, but it seems like all our new queen ever _does_ is freeze stuff."

"No, she's being smart," huffed another one. "Before, she was 'the girl who accidentally froze Arendelle.' Now she's 'the sorceress who lives in the friggin' _ice castle_ and _whooped_ the last guys who crossed her.'"

There was a pause while the other harvesters pondered this.

"Prince Hans took her on, and she was in an ice palace _then_," pointed out the first one.

"Yeah, well, Hans is a special kind of stupid. I hear his brothers put him in the stocks and had people pelt rotten fruit all over his pretty boy face."

"I heard they spanked him. Like, literally slapped his-"

"Ugh, are we _still_ talking about this?" a different harvester cut in. "There's a much juicier rumor goin' around. Can't believe nobody's mentioned it yet!"

"What, juicier than the queen with the magical winter powers?"

"Oh_ yeah_!" the man grinned. "This one comes from a highly reliable source on the palace staff _very_ close to the queen, apparently. It's about her _and_ her sister."

"What, the princess?" an ice-cutter frowned, lowering his pick. "The only rumor I've heard is that she's _easy_. She's dating some no-name idiot, ain't she?"

"Not according to _this_ rumor," chuckled the other one. "They say she's been-"

"Shouldn't you guys be, I dunno, _harvesting ice_?" came a voice from behind them.

"Oh yeah?" the man scoffed, not turning his head. "And who do you think you are, bossing us around?"

"Oh, just some no-name idiot."

Every worker jolted and immediately retrieved their fallen pickaxes.

"Ah- AH, Kristoff!" gulped the one who'd been talking, turning to find a head of unmanly blond hair glaring right at him. "Didn't see you there, _pal_! Yeah, uh, we were just catching our breaths, Mr. Royal Ice Harvester- We'll be right back to work-"

"No, no, this sounded good. I'd like to hear this 'juicy rumor' about my girlfriend," said Kristoff dryly.

The man looked to his comrades, but they had no aid to offer him. "Well... I hear the queen and her sister have been doing some... _freaky stuff_ together." His lips curled upwards.

"Like _what_?" demanded Kristoff.

"They say the two of them are like _weasels_ in _heat_! _BWAH HA HA HA HA!"_

* * *

"And that's why I hate people," Kristoff concluded as he showed off his new bruises to Sven. The duo were currently traveling out of the forest and towards the Arendelle capital, where an ice-covered palace towered over the rest of the town. Both of them were still limping from those arrow wounds, but despite Anna's protests, Kristoff had insisted they'd toughed out worse, so here they were going on a long walk through the city. "Come on, let's hurry over and see the girls before it gets dark. I've had more than enough testosterone for one day."

The boy and his reindeer carried on through the heart of town, halted only briefly by a man in a heavy overcoat.

"Psst! Hey kid!" he whispered. "Are you interested in acquiring some _unique_ merchandise?"

"I dunno, are you interested in acquiring a cell in the nearest jailhouse?" snapped Kristoff.

"Alright, alright, I can take a hint..." The man slinked away to the filthy back alley from whence he came. Kristoff let out an annoyed snort and continued down the streets.

"Gee, Kristoff, you seem even grumpier than usual," remarked Sven- though there was a curious lack of passerby going "Oh my God a talking reindeer!" and surplus of ones going "Why is that guy talking to himself?" and "Don't make eye contact."

"Thanks for noticing, pal," sighed Kristoff, scratching his friend between the ears. "I really outta be happy, I know... Everyone survived the rebellion mostly unscathed, Elsa's using her powers again, my leg's not hurting me _too_ badly... But I still feel _bleh_, y'know?"

"I think you're just sad 'cause you're not seeing your _giiiiiiiirlfriiiiiiiiend_ enough!" teased Sven.

"Yeah, yeah, that might be a contributing factor..."

"Y'know, if you asked her, I bet Elsa would let you live at the palace."

"I don't know, Sven..." Kristoff bowed his head. "She's already done a whole lot for us. She made up this 'Royal Ice Harvester' thing and upped our paycheck, which is great because now we can afford rent so we don't have to be homeless anymore-"

"-and we can buy all the carrots we can eat!"

"-right, and we can buy all the carrots we can eat." Yes, Kristoff interrupted himself to maintain the illusion. "So, I mean, I don't want to keep mooching off the palace..."

"And don't forget you've gotta ask about letting the trolls live outside the Valley."

"Yeah, that too..." Somehow, that simple request filled the boy with a strange uneasiness. "Hey, Sven, am I crazy, or was Pabbie acting kinda weird when he told us that?"

"I thought he was being a _jerk_!"

"Well, I wasn't gonna put it that way." Kristoff let out an anxious laugh. "Eh, I'm sure everything's fine."

"Except for the monster plotting to kill us?"

"Ah, yes, how could I forget?"

As they spoke, Kristoff and his reindeer passed through the gates into the palace's entrance courtyard. The transition from toasty summertime air to the chilly castle was going to take some getting used to, but Kristoff was pretty on board with the whole "make Arendelle castle into another ice palace" idea. The first time he'd seen it, he'd nearly cried again.

Kristoff gazed up at the pair of huge, icy statues greeting newcomers.

"Y'know what else I think is bugging you?" snickered Sven. "You're worried that ice harvester's rumor was _riiiiiiiight!"_

"Eww, no, don't be gross!" said Kristoff, sticking out his tongue. "Elsa and Anna only engage in perfectly normal sisterly behavior, like... building giant ice statues of each other."

"Are you _suuuuuuure_, Kristoff? These royal types can get some pretty messed up family trees..."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Sven!" Kristoff shot his friend an impatient glower (This sort of thing was how many of their longer arguments got started). "Look, we're almost to Anna, and then she can reassure us this rumor is _completely _fake!"

Just then, the castle's front doors opened and Princess Anna tumbled out onto the entrance courtyard. Her hair seemed a bit ruffled, and her dress was all disheveled- one of the straps had even slipped off, revealing a bare shoulder. Elsa followed out shortly afterward, accompanied by that skinny guy who always followed her around.

"Kristoff!" Anna said brightly, running to give her boyfriend a hug.

"Uh, hi, what were you doing just there?" asked Kristoff, his eyes falling on her bare shoulder.

"Oh, Elsa and I were... horsing around," said Anna, absently righting the strap. "We found some, uh, creative uses for her powers."

Kristoff and Sven traded glances.

_Couldn't be,_ said Sven (He had the strange ability to speak with Kristoff telepathically).

"Wait, are you hurt?" gasped Anna, noticing the bruise on the boy's arm. "What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing-" said Kristoff, hurriedly covering it with his hand. "-just some jerks spreading a rumor about you and Elsa. I, err, I made sure they wouldn't do it again."

"Rumor?" frowned Elsa, regarding the boy seriously. "What was it?"

"Oh, uh, nothing," said Kristoff, shuffling his feet. "It's not important."

Elsa folded her arms. "No, if people are telling lies about the monarchy, I need to know about it."

"Yeah, c'mon, I wanna hear the rumor!" added Anna.

Kristoff started to open his mouth, but his eyes kept darting back and forth between the two sisters. They both looked so cute and sisterly and _innocent_! Kristoff's eyes moved to his reindeer, who was occupied licking moisture off the snow-carpeted ground.

_You're on your own, buddy,_ Sven told him telepathically.

The sisters stared at Kristoff expectantly.

"You know what?" he suddenly said. "I don't even remember anymore. Rumors are stupid anyways. There used to be this _really _nasty one going around about me and Sven..."

"Whatever, then," shrugged Anna. "From now on, don't get into fights just because people are idiots, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Kristoff let out a huge internal sigh of relief. He'd sure dodged a bullet there!

"YOU'RE UNDER ARREST, YOU FILTHY PEDDLER!"

"YOU CAN'T DO NOTHIN' TO ME! I KNOW MY RIGHTS! I KNOW MY RIGHTS!"

Out of nowhere, the entrance courtyard erupted into chaos. A procession of guards stormed in, dragging a kicking and screaming man in a heavy overcoat who seemed awfully familiar to Kristoff.

"What on earth is going on?" asked Elsa, throwing herself into the fray.

Anders was standing before the guards, his nostrils flaring in outrage. "This... This... degenerate monger was trying to pawn off _unwholesome_ merchandise outside the palace gates!"

"Hey! That's top quality goods you're talking about!" snapped the peddler.

"What kind of merchandise?" frowned Elsa.

The butler shifted his head uncomfortably. "It's not fit to discuss with a lady."

"Come _on_, Anders, we're grown-ups!" said Anna, placing herself beside her sister. "Is it drugs? Weapons?"

"Paintings," said Anders darkly. "_Illicit_ paintings."

"You have no appreciation for high-concept art!" The peddler tried to charge at Anders, fists raised, but the guards restrained him. In the struggle, the man's overcoat was dislodged and several surprisingly large and detailed unframed portraits slipped out. Most of them uncurled themselves as they hit the ground.

"_Whoa!_" Kristoff let out a whistle. "That _is_ illicit!"

Words cannot describe the look on the sisters' faces as they stared downwards.

"Is... Is that supposed to be Elsa?" Anna asked faintly. "_And is _that_ supposed to be _ME?!"

("Could you, uh, move out of the way, please?" Fritz made a futile attempt to look through the wall of guards surrounding the scene, but they were too tall and he was too short. "I need to see so I can be properly morally outraged...")

"What is _wrong_ with you?!" Anna screamed, her face turning redder than her hair. "_Why would you draw that_?!"

"Hey, the artist's merely a slave to whim!" said the peddler, throwing up his hands defensively.

"That doesn't even look like me!" Anna pointed an accusing finger at one of the paintings. "You drew me so much more... more..." She struggled for words, seething. "..._fuller_!"

"Slave to passion, too," shrugged the peddler. "I was inspired by this awesome rumor that's been going around."

Elsa's face had hardened into something that could murder with a single glare. "Whoever started that rumor is sick and twisted, and if I ever find them, I will make them _pay_."

(Fritz blanched and began inching away from the crowd.)

"And as for _your_ punishment..." Elsa fixed her glare on the peddler.

"JAIL! JAIL UNTIL HE ROTS!" screamed Anna.

"As queen, I'm charging you with operating in the city without a merchant's license, public indecency, and slander against the monarchy. That's a hefty fine."

"DEBTOR'S PRISON! DEBTOR'S PRISON UNTIL HE ROTS!"

"That's not all," added Anders, retrieving a stack of papers from the fallen overcoat. "Apparently he was also caught trying to run this fifty-page manuscript off at a printing press."

"What's the manuscript about?" asked Elsa.

"Or can we guess?" Kristoff deadpanned.

"Oh, it's about what you would expect from this vile licentious miscreant," spat Anders, holding the papers away from his face like some kind of anti-Bible.

"For _fifty whole pages_?" scoffed Anna.

"Yes, it's quite descriptive." The butler retrieved a pair of spectacles from his pocket and examined the text. "It appears to start with the two of you covering each other in melted chocolate-"

"Stop, _stop_, that's quite enough!" Elsa impulsively shut her eyes and covered her ears.

"Hey now, what am I _supposed_ to do when _inspiration strikes_?" said the peddler.

"Not another word out of _you_!" snapped Elsa. "We don't need any further peeks into your depraved, incestuous mind!"

"_Incestuous_?" The peddler let out an indignant huff. "Who do you take me for? I'll have you know my writing takes place in an alternate universe where-"

"GUARDS! Get him OUT OF MY PRESENCE!"

And that was the last they ever saw of him. The sisters, bodyguard, boyfriend, and reindeer all stood still in the now-emptied entrance yard, Anna and Elsa taking a moment to catch their breaths.

"That guy's lucky you didn't freeze his pants off," Anna grumbled. "So, uh, what are we gonna do about those?" She gestured to the assorted paintings and handwritten pages still lining the floor.

Elsa knelt down and gathered up the scattered illegal goods in her arms- cautiously, as if they were diseased- and then handed them all to her bodyguard. "Here, go burn these."

Fritz required a moment to stare before he could reply. "...Yes," he said. "I will go do that." He bolted through the palace doors and out of sight with unexpected speed.

"Well," said Kristoff, "I don't know about you guys, but I need to go rinse my brain in acid now."

The queen turned towards the front doors. "You two enjoy yourselves. I have some work to get done."

Anna's face fell. "Do you _have_ to?"

"Sorry, my advisers called _another_ emergency meeting today," sighed Elsa. "And I already wasted too much time on that peddler's garbage. I need to get going."

She started to walk away, but then Kristoff called out, "Queen Elsa, wait!" She halted and turned back around.

"There's something I've been wanting to ask you about," he said. "I mean, uh, not me, but the trolls. And not all the trolls, just the old ones, really, mostly Pabbie. They, uh, kind of remember back when they could go out in public around humans and stuff, and since you said you'd be friendlier to magic people than the last few monarchs, they wanted to know when you'd, y'know... make good on your promise?"

The queen seemed to tense at these words. "We'll deal with that when the summer's over and the prophecy's come to pass. Now goodbye." Then she, like her bodyguard, vanished behind the palace doors.

* * *

The Council chamber was no longer drab and gray. The elaborate snowflake designs covering every inch of it really livened the place up, and the enormous ice-throne now perpetually fixed at the head of the table gave it just the right "never forget who's in charge" vibe.

"The whole castle," the ex-head said to the other decrepit old men present. "She froze the whole castle."

"Hey, it's better than the whole country, isn't it?" said another advisor.

"I don't get how she can do all this, but she still can't use her magic to end the drought!"

"_I_ don't get how she can do all this, but she still laughed off my skating-rink-chain idea!"

"What I would like to know," said the ex-head, his voice growing sharper, "is why the sudden change? The last few meetings, it looked like she was back to hiding her sorcery, and now she's flaunting it again!"

"Oh, that's quite simple, really," an advisor chuckled, then said, in an undertone, "She's a _woman_. She's obviously having mood sw-"

"Good evening," said a voice from directly behind him.

The man turned his sentence into a coughing fit and then spun in his chair to say, "Ah, good evening, Y-Your Majesty! Glad to see you've finally arrived!"

"I believe this meeting was called to discuss the current state of the castle?" said Elsa tightly. "Does anyone have any objections to the castle remaining covered in ice?"

There was a long, pervasive silence.

* * *

A while later, Elsa was walking down the castle hallways, which were noticeably covered in the same amount of ice as before the council meeting. On her way to the bedchambers, she chanced across her bodyguard. The boy seemed to be as inexplicable a bundle of nerves as ever.

"Did you do it?" she asked him.

"_NO_!" he immediately yelped, flinching.

"You didn't burn the pictures?" Elsa frowned.

"Oh. I meant 'yes,'" said Fritz, fiddling with the collar of his uniform. "All burned up."

"Good. I'm going to bed." The queen started to walk past him.

"B-But Your Highness, isn't it a little early?" asked Fritz.

"It's fine."

Elsa arrived in her bedroom. There was no door, but there was also nobody else in the bedchambers hall, so she still had privacy. The girl seated herself in the chair before her dresser.

"I can't believe I never saw it before," she murmured. "I can't believe I let this stranger into our household and never _payed attention_ to him...and after everything that's happened! How can I keep being _so stupid_?

"Anna told me _he _was the one who asked _her_ out. And he just _happens _to have been raised by the same trolls that saved Anna's life? That's not a coincidence... That's a motive.

"I can't let somebody with an agenda get close to Anna... Not again. But... what if I'm wrong?" She turned her head away. "What if he really is a good person, and I'm being paranoid? What would Anna think of me _then_?"

"_The question is,_" said the voice, "_are you willing to take that risk_?"

* * *

**_Author's Note:_ That line about the melted chocolate was to let you guys know I could write some amazing smut if I wanted to, but luckily for you, I've chosen to use my powers of writing for good instead of evil. You're welcome.**


	20. The Joys of Childhood

A dignified butler walked purposefully down the plain stone halls of Arendelle castle. A charitable onlooker would have called him _just_ on the far edge of middle-aged. Had they leaned into his scalp and squinted, they would have made out the last fleeting remnants of hair that was grayish-brown instead of grayish-gray.

Anders reached the first door and gave it a few sharp raps. "Time to wake up, Princess Anna." He was met with a half-uttered contortion of sound waves that might have been intended to be, "Five more minutes..." Anders rolled his eyes, then moved across the hall to do likewise to the second door.

"Time to wake up, Princess Elsa."

The reply from this door was perfectly articulate: "I'm awake."

The butler nodded in approval and then marched back to the first door to give it another pounding. "Perhaps Your Highness has your pillows crammed in your ears? I _said_ it's time to wake up." This time Anders was met with an exaggerated snoring noise.

Before Anna, Anders hadn't thought princesses were capable of making sound effects with their mouths.

He was about to redouble his efforts when he heard footsteps behind him. "Let her sleep," said a voice. Anders reflexively turned to bow. The person standing before him was basically Anders's opposite: A beautiful woman who perpetually looked twenty no matter how hard she aged. _Her_ brown hair probably wouldn't gray for _decades_ past when _Anders's_ had succumbed to it (And _Anders_ was the one tasked with babysitting Anna. Gee, what a coincidence).

"With all due respect, this is _not_ helping Princess Anna learn to be punctual."

"You can wake her, but let me get Elsa out of the way first," said the queen.

_Good save, Your Majesty. I almost risked letting Princess Anna lay eyes on Princess Elsa for a few seconds, and then the sky would collapse and the earth would die in a fire,_ Anders would have liked to say.

"As you wish, Your Majesty," Anders said.

He took out a keyring and opened Elsa's door. The bedroom was covered in patches of ice like boils on a leper- on the bed-frame, drawer handles, blankets, and anywhere else human hands would logically go. Elsa herself was standing rigid in the center of the room, wearing a facial expression that Anders had seen on soldiers heading off to war for the first time and absolutely did not belong on a nine-year-old girl.

"Good morning, Elsa," the queen said softly. "It's time for your bath."

"Where's Nanny?" asked Elsa.

"She was among the staff who left."

There was a silence during which it was understood this was as opposed to risking Nanny freezing to death.

"_I'm_ bathing you now," clarified the queen.

Elsa shrank back. "I can do it myself."

"It's fine. We'll be careful."

Anders thought about how people shouldn't have to put several feet of distance between each other just to have a conversation, then watched the queen leave for the bathing chambers, followed by her daughter. The princess walked around Anders in a wide arc.

It went against every neat and orderly bone in his body, but Anders really wanted to grab one of the decorative vases and punt it into the far wall.

_Snap out of it_, he ordered himself. Anders turned to knock on Princess Anna's door again, but before he had the chance, it swung open of its own accord.

"Hi, Anders!" said a voice from around his knees. "What's for breakfast?"

"Ah, I see the siren song of food has finally tempted you out of your covers," said Anders.

"You're funny, Anders. Funny _looking_!" The princess erupted into a fit of high-pitched laughter.

"I'm pleased to see you still find that joke amusing after the fiftieth time, Your Highness." Anders barely had time to finish his retort before Anna zoomed off down to the dining hall.

By the time Anders made it there, Anna was already seated at the royal end of the table, holding a plate piled with about twice as much as a human being is capable of consuming.

"I don't believe chocolate is a conventional breakfast food," remarked Anders, snatching the plate away mere inches from Anna's mouth. The princess protested by making the kind of guttural honking noise a princess should never, ever make.

_She'll grow out of it, she'll grow out of it, she'll grow out of it_, Anders chanted to himself.

Anna's six-year-old attention span did a one-eighty from food to all the unoccupied tables in the room. "Wow, it's empty. Where is everybody?"

"We had to downsize the staff. Budget reasons." Anders was a little disgusted with how easily that rolled off his tongue.

Anna didn't question him. She simply accepted the plate Anders handed her with a tenth as much food and set to work eating.

Anders's eyes fell on Anna's head. There it was, like a scar- the big, white streak marring Anna's reddish-but-not-quite-ginger hair. The constant reminder of what had happened only a handful of nights ago. When she'd woken up and seen her new skunk stripe for the first time, Anna hadn't batted an eyelash. She'd acted like she'd had it for years.

Anders did not like magic one bit. The kind that did something tangible like, picking at random here, making ice, _that_ was fine. What he took issue with was the kind that _changed people_. Anna had _loved_ her sister's magic. Sometimes it had been all she could talk about. And then one day she'd awoken to a whole different world _and she didn't even realize it_.

It was beyond Anders's understanding how getting beaned in the head with ice meant you had to get your memories erased, but apparently if they exposed Anna to Elsa's ice again or even so much as _told her the truth_ right now, her mind might not heal properly. Anders hated it. He could make himself understand the technical details of the situation and how the chosen course of action was the best one available, but deep down he couldn't grasp why they didn't just tell Anna what had happened, warn Elsa not to bean her in the head with ice again, and then go back to normal.

And now, thanks to that close call, Elsa had lost her nerve and was spewing ice like phlegm in allergy season, meaning even if Anna's mind got all better, there was still the risk of her freezing to death the regular way with no frozen hearts or minds required.

The worst part was they'd been living in the new status quo for days now, and Anna had yet to realize it. The king and queen hadn't exactly planned on having Anna's memory erased, and she had woken up the next morning acting totally normal. Nobody had the heart to tell her outright that she could no longer be within a few feet of her sister. The king and queen had occasionally used the "your sister is heir to the throne and therefore very busy" excuse, but Anna apparently hadn't gotten the message even after Elsa had been "very busy" for the eighth time in a row.

All of a sudden, Anders found it hard to be in the same room as this chipper, unsuspecting little girl. He found himself slipping out the dining hall and heading towards the bathing chambers.

He was merely checking on Elsa, he told himself. No, not on Elsa, on the queen. She wouldn't be used to bathing her daughter _herself_. Something could go wrong. Not something involving magical ice powers, mind you. Something _normal_ could go wrong.

Anders paused before the chamber door. What was he supposed to do, knock and say, _Hello in there, anybody freezing to death?_ Luckily the issue was solved for him by the door bursting open.

The queen stormed out. The dark blue dress she always wore was now covered in jagged icicles. There were even a couple smaller ones trailing off her hair.

"Your Majesty-" got out an alarmed butler.

"_Scrub brush_," said the queen.

"Pardon?"

"From now on, we use a _scrub brush_," clarified the queen. "And a bucket of soap."

"Are you hurt, my lady?"

The queen let out a long sigh. "No, _I'm_ alright."

"What happened?"

"Anders, please go to the hall closet and retrieve the ice pick."

"Oh."

This, Anders realized, was going to be a long day.

One excavation later, Anders returned the pick to its place in the supply closet next to the ice scraper and the big bag of salt. _Naturally_, Elsa didn't know how to make her ice _go away_. That would be _too easy_. The only thing keeping them from being up to their ears in ice was the fact that it had a tendency to melt after a while (Anders thanked God every day the king and queen hadn't had a child with, say, rock powers that covered everything in rocks). For whatever reason, Elsa seemed unable to sustain liquid water, meaning once her ice melted, a minute later it evaporated away as mysteriously as it had arrived. Anders found this fortunate because he shuddered to think what effect Elsa might otherwise have on the water cycle, and also because he imagined her powers would be much less pretty if they caused mold and mildew.

"Nine years," Anders grumbled, shutting the closet behind him. "She has been bathing without incident for _nine years_."

"Her powers are growing. She's nearly to the point of freezing _everything_ she touches." The queen gazed towards the bathing chambers, where Elsa was drying herself off- or rather, picking bits of ice off her skin. "And she's scared. She's been very self-conscious about not hurting anyone... again..."

"It seems to me since she became 'self-conscious,' there's been far _more_ close calls," said Anders.

"She knows she's dangerous now. She..." The queen brought a hand to her eyes. "She's been forced to think about things... constantly... that little girls shouldn't have to think about... Anders, sometimes I worry on _that night_, Elsa lost her... her _innocence_, and now she'll never get it back."

Anders waited for the queen to take a deep breath. "She was heir to the throne anyways," he pointed out. "Growing up too quickly comes with the territory." The queen nodded slowly. "Right now, what Elsa needs is _confidence_, not _innocence_. Have you met John? He's always making a fuss about his war wound, but his leg's fine. It's all in his head."

The queen contemplated these words. "Mind over matter?"

"Exactly."

"I see. I'll speak about this with my husband. I just..." She faltered again. "I shouldn't have tried to bathe her. I only wanted to give Elsa some _normalcy_ in her life, but I guess now we don't have much choice but to change her routine to account for the ice..." The queen bowed her head, then added in a near-whisper, "Anders... What if... What if we're doing the wrong thing? _What if we're being bad parents_?"

A hand was placed on her shoulder. "Most parents would've chucked her in the river the first time she froze a dirty diaper." Anders gave a somewhat bleak smile.

The queen returned the expression. "What about Anna?" she asked. "How is she?"

"She seems-"

"I'm right here, Mama!" called a voice from the nearby staircase. "Look what I can do! _Wheeeeee_!" An alarmed mother ran to the head of the stairs just in time to watch Anna slide down the railings.

"-in high spirits," finished Anders.

"I'll get her," said the queen. "Stay with Elsa until she's back in her room." Then she hurried down after her daughter.

Anders went to knock on the bathing chambers door. "Are you decent, my lady?"

"Yes," came the reply. Anders opened the door to find Elsa dressed in a child-sized navy blue dress with a girlish headband above her bangs. She looked exactly like the queen if the queen were very tiny and hadn't touched a drop of sunlight in her life. Elsa even had the posture down, standing with her shoulders back and her arms at her side.

"You look lovely, Princess Elsa," said Anders.

"Thank you."

"But you still have some frozen bathwater in your hair."

Ander's arm moved on pure impulse. It didn't make it an inch before Elsa ducked out of his way and made for her bedroom door at the fastest speed she could go while still looking regal. Elsa put her hand was on the knob, and the door was halfway open before she realized what she'd done.

The ice was out instantly, crawling up the wood like it was alive. Elsa immediately withdrew her arm, but a good fourth of the door had already been covered.

"Princess Elsa, don't-" Anders was cut off by the slam of a door and click of a lock. "...Right. I'll fetch the ice scraper, then." Anders sighed and returned to the supply closet.

Any ice outside the bedroom had to be cleaned immediately thanks to Anna's predisposition to turn up exactly where she wasn't supposed to be, but the king and queen had given up on cleaning _inside_ Elsa's room days ago. It was like trying to dry up the ocean with a leaky bucket.

Anders deiced the doorknob just as Gerda arrived carrying a tray of food. "Breakfast in bed," she said with a forced smile. Anders smiled back and refrained from pointing out that breakfast in bed had probably lost its luster for Elsa by now.

The butler replaced the ice scraper and then left the bedchamber. He didn't like to admit it to himself, but Anders was relieved to be away from the princess. Every time he saw her, he had to shake the mental image of a ghost lingering in the house it had died in.

This was as opposed to Anna, of course, who was nigh omnipresent.

"Hi, Anders!" she greeted him the instant he reached the ground floor.

"Ah, Your Majesty, I trust your mother reprimanded you?"

"No, she just yelled at me," said Anna, sounding matter-of-fact, cheerful, and not the tiniest bit ashamed. "Have you seen my bike?"

"Why would you need your bike?" Anders's eyes narrowed. "It's not good weather to be riding outdoors."

"What does that have to do with any- Wait, what did you say? The weather-" Anna shot her head to the nearest window and was met with whiteness. "Snow! IT'S SNOWING!"

Anna had not been energetic today. She'd been at her regular levels of energy. _Now_ she was energetic.

"YESILOVESNOWTHISISTHEBEST-"

"Not so fast." Anders grabbed hold of Anna's arm before she had the chance to blast through the front door. "You're not going out in your nightgown. Go change into boots, mittens, and a heavy coat."

"But _Anders_-"

"God knows you've been exposed to more than enough cold already," Anders added in an undertone.

"What?"

"Nothing. Go get changed."

"Yeah! I'll get dressed super fast and make me hot chocolate while I'm out okay bye!" Anna shot upstairs like a bullet.

He had a feeling those mittens would not remain on her hands the entire play session, but Anders honestly didn't care so long as the princess burned off some energy and stayed out of his hair for a few hours.

Anders seized the chance to read a novel in his favorite armchair, but he only made it twenty minutes before his conscience caught up with him. Being outside by no means meant Anna was staying out of trouble. Anders thought with a shudder back to the time Anna had broken a window, or the time she'd brought a frog into the castle, or the time she'd broken a window AND brought a frog into the castle all in one go by hurling the poor amphibian through the glass.

"Princess Anna?"

Anders checked the gardens. No sign of any children. Then he checked the snow-covered courtyard. Nope. Not even any child-sized footprints. Anders got a bad feeling Anna had spent the past twenty minutes turning the castle upside down searching for her left boot (It had happened before).

The butler sighed and returned to the bedchambers hallway. He wished he'd realized when he'd signed on as "butler," the king and queen had really meant "third parent." He made it to Anna's door and peered inside.

There was Anna, sitting on her bed, facing the far wall. Her mittens, boots, and coat had been carelessly discarded on the floor.

"Princess Anna?" frowned Anders. "Aren't you going to play in the snow?"

"...Don't wanna," Anna said faintly.

"Oh. I see. And the hot chocolate-?"

"Don't want any."

Dear lord, this was serious.

"Anna, is everything al-?"

"_When can I see Elsa_?" Anna spun to face him. She wasn't crying, but she looked like she was getting there.

Anders took a step backwards. "Y-You should ask your parents."

"Can I see her _tomorrow_?"

Anders didn't answer her. All he could think to say was that he'd had a sick brother once but Anders was still here and his life wasn't ruined and he was still happy sometimes and _Jesus Christ_, that is _not_ a conversation you have with a _six-year-old girl_.

Anders ended up closing the door behind him. He was left standing in an empty hallway. Anders fixed his gaze on Elsa's bedroom door, which was only a few feet away from the closet where both girls' boots, mittens, and coats were kept.

Anna remained motionless on her bed until a loud crashing noise sent her onto her feet and into the hall. "What's going on?" She caught sight of Anders, then the remains of a decorative vase.

"Lost my balance," Anders explained.

* * *

A dignified butler walked purposefully down the brilliant, icy halls of Arendelle castle. A charitable onlooker would have called him _just_ on the border of completely senile and decrepit. His hearing wasn't what it used to be, but Anders was still well aware of the noises coming from the coat closet thanks to something he called his "teenager senses."

Anders turned the doorknob. There was a sound like a plunger being unstuck and then Anders was greeted by the sight of Anna and Kristoff standing as far apart from each other as the closet would allow.

"Hi, Anders!" said Anna, her face filling to the brim with red. "Kristoff, uh, lost a button... in this closet... and I was helping him look for it. Oh, _there_ it is! It was on his shirt the whole time! How about that?" She hurriedly buttoned up Kristoff's undershirt.

Anders gave the princess a look that instilled her with the inexplicable urge to join a nunnery.

"Thanks, Anna, now we can get back to holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes!" Kristoff said as he squeezed out the closet.

"Did you know giving birth is the most excruciating pain a woman will feel in her entire life?" remarked Anders. "Food for thought."

"I don't know why you would randomly say that but okay." Anna took Kristoff by the hand and hurriedly led him down the stairs.

"Well, that was the most awkward I have _ever_ felt," said Kristoff, almost dazed. "Okay, except for that 'peddler' incident earlier, but that's in like a whole other metric on the awkward scale."

"Eh, he's caught me doing worse," shrugged Anna. Kristoff thought it best not to ask for clarification.

"I think this is a sign I need to head home." Kristoff glanced out a window at the setting sun. "Besides, it's getting late, and I'm hauling more ice tomorrow."

"Aww, but you _always_ leave early!" Anna groaned. "Can't you stay? It's _boring _here without you!"

"Maybe you need a hobby? Besides making out with me, I mean."

"Oh, Kristoff, thank you!" Anna said with mock enthusiasm. "You've opened my eyes to the hole in my life that can only be filled by stamp collecting!"

"Hey, not every day gets to have a rebellion and kidnapping plot in it," grinned Kristoff, motioning to his arrow wound. "Well, bye. I... I'll see you."

"Yeah, I'll see you, too."

There was a brief silence. They'd gotten to the "making out" phase but not the "I love you" phase. The two of them glanced around to make sure Anders was safely out of sight and then shared a kiss.

"Try not to get eaten by a Wight while I'm gone," said Kristoff.

"I'll do my best."

Anna walked Kristoff to the castle gates and then watched him vanish in the distance.

Even though it was late, there was still plenty of light out, and Anna had a strict "sky's awake, I'm awake" policy. That meant she had to find something to do to fill the next few hours. Anna went with the obvious choice first, but she was once again blocked by Anders.

"The queen is sleeping, and she is _not_ to be disturbed!" he hissed, placing himself before the bedchambers entrance.

"Ugh, why's she been going to bed so_ early_ lately?" asked Anna.

"She's been in emergency meetings, rationing out food so we don't all starve to death in a drought," replied Anders, "but sure, you can compromise her decision-making by depriving her of essential rest for the sake of your own personal amusement. Be my guest."

Anna's next choice was to hunt down Olaf. She found him by the castle gates.

"Hey, Olaf, what are you up to?"

"I was going over to one of my new friend's houses," said Olaf. "He said his family's never seen a talking snowman before. Crazy, right? Everyone I know has seen one!"

Olaf skipped through the gates to join up with his group of kid-friends, but Anna was immediately stopped by the guards.

"Your Highness, you're to remain in the castle bounds," one said with an apologetic shrug. "Queen's orders."

"Oh, come on, that is so unfair! Besides, what if the Wight-thingy goes after Olaf? Someone has to have his back! And- And, uh, when Elsa said I couldn't leave, it was really more like a suggestion anyways!"

Anna's flawless logic failed to sway them. Her final choice was to head to the gallery and hang out with the pictures. Unfortunately, while Elsa's ice had covered the burned bits and made the gallery much more presentable overall, ice-paintings were apparently outside the range of her powers, so the gallery was still empty. Well, Joan was there, but she didn't feel like talking.

All of Joan's friends were gone, and it had left her in a bad mood.

* * *

Anders was really supposed to be occupied with his duties as Chief of Staff, but he couldn't help noticing the princess wandering around the castle like a lost puppy. Eventually, Anna went up to the bedchambers, and Anders found himself following after her.

The old man wordlessly glanced through the open door into Anna's bedroom. She was sitting on her bed, facing the far wall. Anders moved his gaze towards the place where the door to Elsa's old bedroom had once been. Elsa had apparently made sure to cover it up completely, leaving nothing but smooth, bare ice.

Anders walked through the empty frame into the queen's new bedroom, where he was surprised to find her seated at her dresser chair.

"Queen Elsa, I thought you were asleep?"

The queen gave a start and sprang to her feet. "Oh, I guess I wasn't as tired as I thought..."

"In that case, you should know your sister is sitting in her room right now, bored out of her skull."

Elsa didn't need to be told twice. Anders watched her scurry off into Anna's room, shutting the door behind her.

Grumpy old men don't smile when they're happy, but they get this content gleam in their eyes.


End file.
